Austin : Elon Musk sold more than $3.5 billion worth of Tesla stock this week in his second round of sales since buying Twitter, according to a report from Wall Street Journal.
The chief executive officer sold nearly 22 million Tesla shares over a three-day period ending December 14, according to a regulatory disclosure made public on Wednesday.
According to the report, since the company's stock peaked in November 2021, the chief executive officer sold more than $39 billion in Tesla shares. Tesla, still the world's most-valued automaker by value, has lost more than $700 billion in market capitalisation since that all-time high.
On Tuesday, Musk tweeted, "At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed (US Federal Reserve) keeps raising rates."
According to the WSJ report, Musk's ownership of Twitter, which the billionaire bought in a deal valued at $44 billion in October, has gotten off to a tumultuous start. Last month, Musk said Twitter had suffered "a massive drop in revenue" and was losing $4 million a day. He later invoked the spectre of bankruptcy.
Twitter took on around $13 billion in debt as part of the acquisition. That could leave the social-media company owing annual interest payments of more than $1 billion, compared with around $51 million in 2021, WSJ reported analysts' estimation.
The Wall Street Journal said Musk's focus on Twitter has irritated some Tesla investors as the company tracks for its worst annual stock-price performance on record. It has also weighed on Musk's personal wealth, which has declined by more than $100 billion this year to around $160 billion, according to WSJ.
The Tesla CEO previously sold company stock in April, August and November of this year, linking the latter two batches of sales to Twitter, according to WSJ. It also reported this month's sales left Musk owning roughly 13.4 per cent of Tesla, meaning he remains the company's largest shareholder by far.