Musk sells $7bn worth of Tesla shares as Twitter battle heads to trial
Elon Musk has sold nearly $7bn (£5.7bn) worth of Tesla shares as his battle with Twitter over his botched takeover heads to court.
Musk, tech entrepreneur and the world’s richest man, will head to trial on 17 October.
Musk had sold $8.5bn (£7bn) worth of Tesla shares in April, assuring shareholders that he was not planning any further sales.
The Twitter board in June had “unanimously” recommended Musk’s $44bn (£36.3bn) takeover bid, which was first announced in April.
However, the deal swiftly fell into turmoil in July when Musk retracted his offer, accusing Twitter of not sharing accurate information on the number of spam accounts, or bots, make up Twitter’s total usership.
The ditched bid sent the social media giant’s shares below the price he had agreed to pay for them.
Twitter has since blamed Musk for declining revenue, which dropped one per cent in the second quarter of this year to $1.18bn (£1.5bn), falling short of the projected $1.32bn (£1.09bn).