Musk sells $3.5 billion in Tesla stock after investors raise concerns about Twitter involvement businessroundups.org

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold more than 20 million shares of the company between Monday and Wednesday. The sale is valued at approximately $3.5 billion, according to a regulatory filing. Musk’s latest stock dump follows the nearly $4 billion worth of stock he sold last month.

Musk has not publicly stated a reason for the stock sale this time around, nor whether he is ready for today. In April, he sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock, and in August, Musk sold another $7 billion.

After Wednesday’s stock sale, Musk owns about $66 billion worth of Tesla stock.

The sale comes as Tesla investors give rise to concern about Musk’s involvement with Twitter, which the CEO recently acquired after a controversial and expensive purchase. Investors say Musk’s involvement with the social media platform is detrimental to Tesla, arguments they support by pointing to the company’s stock price. Shares of Tesla, which traded at $156.80 after hours on Wednesday, are down 60.8% from January and are on track for their worst performance for the entire year.

Some analysts are speculating that today’s stock sale is Musk’s answer to some of the high interest debt he pays for his $44 billion Twitter deal. Twitter took on $13 billion in debt as part of that deal, including about $3 billion in unsecured debt on which Twitter pays interest at 11.75%.

Investors say it doesn’t appear the sale was planned, and it’s unclear if Musk has finished selling. That said, Musk only has until Friday to sell more shares before Tesla enters a quiet period before the end of the quarter. Some investors expressed frustration that Musk has been unpredictable when it comes to selling shares. Years ago he said he wcould not sell shares. When he came back to that earlier this year, Musk said he was done selling. But lo and behold, he goes ahead and dumps stocks again on three separate occasions.

The stock sale also comes as some of Tesla’s most hardcore investors are begging Musk and the board to consider buying back shares as the company’s stock price continues to fall. Musk said during Tesla’s Q3 earnings call that the company will likely make a buyback next year, possibly between $5 billion and $10 billion.

Musk’s latest stock dump comes on the same day the The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate between 4.25% and 4.5%. Stock prices often take a hit when interest rates rise, so Musk could have sold in anticipation of Tesla shares losing more value in the coming weeks.