The move follows a sale in November of 19.5 million shares of Tesla and that company’s stockholders are growing increasingly restless and vocal about the founder and CEO’s commitment and highly public distractions with his latest venture. In April, when Musk also divested a big chunk of Tesla ahead of his $44-billion Twitter takeover, he promised there would be no more selling of Tesla stock but sold another tranche in November.
No reason was given. But Twitter has high debt and corresponding high interest payments and by Musk’s own admission is suffering a sharp downturn in revenue and burning through cash. He has been slashing costs amid mass layoffs. This week he Tweeted: “At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.” The Federal reserve increased interest rates by 0.5% yesterday — the seventh rate hike since March.
Man’s needs to make back some of that Twitter deal money somehow