Elon Musk sells $3.6bn of Tesla shares

Twitter owner Elon Musk has sold another 22 million shares, worth $3.58bn in the electric car maker Tesla.

The shares were sold on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week, a filing with a US financial regulator shows.

It brings the total of Tesla stocks sold by Elon Musk over the past year to almost $40bn. The reason for the latest share sales has not been disclosed.

Earlier this week he lost his position as the world's richest person.
 
Although, he still remains biggest shareholder of the carmaker giant with a 13.4% stake, according to financial market data provider Refinitiv.

Last month, Musk revealed that he had sold 19.5 million shares of Tesla worth $3.95bn, just days after completing a $44bn takeover of social media platform Twitter.

Tesla is one of the worst performing stocks among major car makers and technology companies in 2022, as investors worry that Mr Musk's buyout of Twitter is diverting his attention.

On Wednesday the value of Tesla shares listed on the Nasdaq index in New York closed below $500bn for the first time since 2020.

At the end of 2021, the company was worth more than $1tn but its value has slumped in recent months.

Mr Musk completed the takeover of Twitter in October and since then has focused a significant amount of his time on the business.

Mr Musk sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares to help fund his purchase, which helped to push the shares down.

Tesla has also been hit by recalls, as well as government probes of crashes and its autopilot feature.

This week Elon Musk lost his position as the world's richest person after a sharp drop in the value of his shares in Tesla this year.

According to both Forbes and Bloomberg, he was overtaken at the top spot by Bernard Arnault of France, the chief executive of luxury goods group LVMH.

according to Forbes, Elon Musk is now worth $174bn, Bernard Arnault's fortune stands at almost $191bn.