Elon Musk has sold roughly $4bn (£3.19bn) of Tesla shares over the past few days, most likely to help fund his purchase of Twitter.
The 4.4 million shares were sold at prices ranging from $872.02 to $999.13 and Mr Musk reported the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
Most of the sales took place on Tuesday – a day when shares in Tesla closed down 12%.
Mr Musk told his 88.5 million Twitter followers early on Friday: “No further TSLA sales planned after today”.
Tesla shares closed down slightly late on Thursday, and they are down 17% so far this year.
Mr Musk, the world’s richest person, offered to buy Twitter for $44bn (£35bn) earlier this month, vowing to make it a haven for free speech, reduce its reliance on advertising, and deal with the proliferation of spam-distributing bots.
While Twitter’s board has given its approval to the deal, the reaction from Twitter users has been mixed, and the deal still needs the go-ahead from shareholders and regulators.
Analysts have also expressed concern that taking over Twitter could mean Mr Musk spends less time on Tesla, the electric car company of which he is chief executive.
Read more: Bezos questions Elon Musk’s ties to China Why is the billionaire buying Twitter?
It is believed that Mr Musk will borrow up to $25.2bn (£20bn) from a number of banks to fund the takeover of Twitter, but the sale of Tesla stock could also go towards this amount.
The deal to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share is expected to conclude before the end of the year.
