Elon Musk sold almost $4bn of Tesla stock after Twitter purchase

Elon Musk sold almost $4 billion of Tesla stock after he purchased Twitter for $44bn, US Securities and Exchange Commission filings have shown.

Documents filed on November 4, 7 and 8 show the world's richest person sold more than 19 million shares in the electric car company.

The Tesla chief executive has unloaded about $36bn worth of shares in the company in the past year — around half of that since he went public with the Twitter buyout plan, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The deal to buy Twitter followed months of back and forth as Mr Musk tried to pull out amid concerns about the number of bots on the social media platform.

He sold $6.9bn worth of Tesla shares in August and said at the time: "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."

Mr Musk said he bought Twitter because he believed it was “important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner without resorting to violence”.

He said last week that the social media platform has had a “massive drop in revenue” because of advertisers pausing spending, without specifying how much it had lost.

Major companies, including US car maker General Motors, consumer food manufacturer General Mills and German car manufacturer Audi, have decided to pause advertising on Twitter as they monitor how things would pan out with Mr Musk now in charge.

Thousands of jobs at Twitter were reportedly cut, although Mr Musk has not specified the exact number.

"Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately, there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day. Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required," he tweeted on November 5.

“It looks like Musk is preparing for things to stay bad at Twitter for the next year,” Gene Munster of Loup Ventures told Bloomberg after the stock sales became public.

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Company info

Company name: Entrupy

Co-founders: Vidyuth Srinivasan, co-founder/chief executive, Ashlesh Sharma, co-founder/chief technology officer, Lakshmi Subramanian, co-founder/chief scientist

Based: New York, New York

Sector/About: Entrupy is a hardware-enabled SaaS company whose mission is to protect businesses, borders and consumers from transactions involving counterfeit goods.

Initial investment/Investors: Entrupy secured a $2.6m Series A funding round in 2017. The round was led by Tokyo-based Digital Garage and Daiwa Securities Group's jointly established venture arm, DG Lab Fund I Investment Limited Partnership, along with Zach Coelius.

Total customers: Entrupy’s customers include hundreds of secondary resellers, marketplaces and other retail organisations around the world. They are also testing with shipping companies as well as customs agencies to stop fake items from reaching the market in the first place.

IF YOU GO

The flights

FlyDubai flies direct from Dubai to Skopje in five hours from Dh1,314 return including taxes. Hourly buses from Skopje to Ohrid take three hours.

The tours

English-speaking guided tours of Ohrid town and the surrounding area are organised by Cultura 365; these cost €90 (Dh386) for a one-day trip including driver and guide and €100 a day (Dh429) for two people.

The hotels

Villa St Sofija in the old town of Ohrid, twin room from $54 (Dh198) a night.

St Naum Monastery, on the lake 30km south of Ohrid town, has updated its pilgrims' quarters into a modern 3-star hotel, with rooms overlooking the monastery courtyard and lake. Double room from $60 (Dh 220) a night.

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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

The Bloomberg Billionaire Index in full

1 Jeff Bezos $140 billion
2 Bill Gates $98.3 billion
3 Bernard Arnault $83.1 billion
4 Warren Buffett $83 billion
5 Amancio Ortega $67.9 billion
6 Mark Zuckerberg $67.3 billion
7 Larry Page $56.8 billion
8 Larry Ellison $56.1 billion
9 Sergey Brin $55.2 billion
10 Carlos Slim $55.2 billion

The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.