Elon Musk (AP)
(Picture: AP)Elon Musk has offloaded almost $7 billion (£5.8 billion) Tesla shares ahead of his multi-billion dollar court clash with Twitter after he bailed out of his $44 billion bid for the social media site.
Twitter is suing Musk in a dispute that could end with him being forced to make good on his offer, or pay a $1 billion break fee to his spurned suitor. The US court will have to decide if claims from Musk that Twitter misled him about the number of active accounts on the are sufficient grounds for him to walk away from the deal.
Musk is also countersuing Twitter, in an attempt to halt its lawsuit against him.
In an ironic twist to the dramatic saga, Musk confirmed his intentions around share sale in a tweet, answering a question asking if he was “done selling”, he replied: “Yes. 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.”
Twitter claims the demise of Musk’s bid, which it backed, hit its revenues and caused chaos within the company.
