“No further Tesla sales planned after today,” Elon Musk said late Thursday.
Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report shares jumped higher Friday after CEO Elon Musk said he was done selling shares of his clean-energy car company after dumping near $4 billion in stock to pay for his $44 billion takeover of social media group Twitter.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings published late Thursday indicated that Musk sold 4.4 million Tesla shares between over the two-day period ending on April 27, just days after inking an agreement to provide around $21 billion in financing for his $54.20 per share offer for Twitter.
“No further Tesla sales planned after today”, Musk Tweeted to his 83 million followers last night, although pre-arranged sales are still possible, given the size of the billionaire’s equity commitment in the Twitter deal.
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Tesla shares were marked 3% higher in pre-market trading to indicate an opening bell price of $903.90 each. Twitter shares edged 0.5% higher to $49.35 each.
Twitter shares, meanwhile, are still marked some 9% south of the bid price Musk unveiled earlier this month as investors continue to question Musk’s willingness to close the $44 billion ‘take-private’ deal.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings published late Tuesday indicate that Musk, by some measures the world’s richest man, will be required to pay a $1 billion termination fee if his effort to buy Twitter and take it private fails.
Twitter is also required to pay Musk a similar amount, the filings indicated, although both sides will have the option of walking away if the takeover isn’t completed by October 24. Twitter is also able to accept — but not solicit — a superior bid to Musk’s if one is proposed.
That said, Twitter’s value proposition improved modestly with better-than-expected first quarter earnings of 61 cents per share and a 15.4% jump in overall revenues, which topped $1.2 billion.
Twitter also said average monetizable daily active users, its term for the number of daily users who can view ads, rose 5.5% from the December quarter to 229 million, with a 39.6 million gain of U.S.-based users.
