Elon Musk's Twitter Purchase and Tesla Stock Sales

• Since completing his purchase of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold 19.5 million shares of the company, totaling $3.95 billion.
• The sales have been widely anticipated, as Musk had sold blocks of Tesla shares worth a total of $15.4 billion earlier this year.
• Twitter confirmed Musk bought the social media company October 27, but he waited until November 4 to start selling additional Tesla shares.
• He also sold blocks of Tesla stock on Monday and Tuesday this week, according to filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• It’s not clear if the money Musk raised went toward the Twitter purchase, or to support losses at Twitter since he took over.
• Musk disclosed last week that Twitter has seen a “massive drop in revenue,” as a growing number of advertisers pause spending on the platform in the wake of his takeover of the company.
• He blamed “activist groups” pressuring advertisers for the loss of ad dollars.
• Twitter lost $270 million in the quarter ending June 30, well before Musk took over and advertisers began to flee.
• It has only $2.7 billion of cash on hand on its balance sheet as of June 30.
• He has announced plans to charge users $8 a month to have verified accounts, and also announced deep staff cuts.
• Twitter’s two weeks of ownership of Twitter have been a “debacle of epic proportions,” said Dan Ives, tech analyst with Wedbush Securities.
• Although it’s possible that the money from Musk’s sale of Twitter sales the last two week may have gone toward paying off some short-term financing used to close the Twitter deal, it can’t be ruled out that it was made necessary by big losses at Twitter.
• “The more he gets into Twitter, the more it becomes a quicksand type of deal,” said Ives.
• This is not the best time to be selling Tesla shares, which have lost 46% of their value so far this year on disappointing sales caused by supply chain problems.
• Musk received an average price of $202.52 for the Tesla shares he sold since the Twitter deal closed, which is down 10% just since he closed on his deal to buy Twitter.
• Shares of Tesla (TSLA) fell 1.5% in premarket trading Wednesday.
• Tesla's stock split three-for-one in early August, causing Musk to sell a total of 15.7 million pre-split shares at the end of 2021 for a total of $16.4 billion.
• Musk may have used some of that cash to buy his initial Twitter stake.

Test your knowledge about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and subsequent sales of Tesla shares. Learn about the financial implications and controversies surrounding these business moves.