Elon Musk sells $6.9 billions worth of Tesla stock

Elon Musk offloaded about $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock in a move he said was done in case he had to execute his deal to buy Twitter.

Musk, Tesla’s CEO, made the transactions between Aug. 5 and Aug. 9, SEC financial filings show. The first sale was made a day after the electric car company’s annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, CNBC reported.

In total, the world’s richest man sold 7.92 million shares of Tesla stock, the report said.

Musk said on Twitter Tuesday that he was done selling Tesla stock after he was prodded by another social media user.

“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” he said.

But just four months earlier, he said the same thing.

After selling $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock in his bid to buy Twitter, he tweeted in April he had no plans to sell more, according to Axios.

“No further TSLA sales planned after today,” he replied in a tweet on April 28.

Musk and Twitter have been in a legal battle since he pulled out of an agreed deal to buy the social media behemoth.

Musk reversed course in July and accused Twitter of failing or refusing to provide information on fake or spam accounts, also known as bots, on the platform.

Twitter sued him days later to force him to complete the deal and then Musk countersued.

Earlier this month, Musk challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a “public debate about the Twitter bot percentage.”

Musk has now sold off about $32 billion in Tesla stock over the last ten months, Bloomberg reported.

Musk also tweeted Tuesday he would buy back Tesla stock if he doesn’t have to buy Twitter.

Tesla stock closed at $850 per share Tuesday.