Tesla: Elon Musk sells almost $4bn in stock

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, sold roughly $4 billion worth of company stock on Tuesday, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

This comes after he completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter more than a week ago.

Musk has been pressing for ways to pay for the significant transaction, for which he incurred enormous debt and earlier sold shares of Tesla worth $15.5 billion.

In filings submitted to the US SEC on Tuesday, it was revealed that he had sold more than 19 million shares, totalling more than $3.9 billion.

Musk took over Twitter and ousted its top executives in late October following a protracted back-and-forth between the powerful social media firm and the richest man in the world.

After his unsolicited bid was approved in April, the billionaire attempted to back out of the agreement at first.

His claims that Twitter had deceived him over the quantity of bogus "bot" accounts led to his cancellation of the contract in July, which the company has since refuted.

Twitter launched a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the deal against Musk after the businessman sought to cancel the acquisition. A trial was approaching, so he resurrected his takeover scheme.

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