Elon Musk has sold nearly $7 billion
worth of Tesla shares, according to legal filings published Tuesday, amid a
high-stakes legal battle with Twitter over a $44 billion buyout deal.

The Tesla boss sold some 7.9 million shares between August 5 and 9, according
to filings published on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website.

“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,” Musk, the world’s richest man wrote on
Twitter late Tuesday.

Twitter is locked in a legal battle with the mercurial Tesla boss over his
effort to walk away from the April agreement to buy the company, and a judge
has ordered that a trial will begin in October.

Musk has filed a countersuit, accusing Twitter of fraud and alleging the
social media platform misled him about key aspects of its business before he
agreed to a $44 billion buyout.

The move comes after Musk sold around $8.5 billion worth of shares in the
electric carmaker in April as he was preparing to finance the Twitter deal.
He tweeted at the time: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”