Elon Musk sells nearly $7 billion worth of Tesla stock as gears himself for a legal war with Twitter

In order to organise his finances before his legal dispute with Twitter, entrepreneur Elon Musk sold approximately $7 billion worth of Tesla stock. In a number of regulatory filings, Musk revealed that he just sold around 8 million shares of Tesla Inc.

Musk tweeted late Tuesday, "It is crucial to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock in the (hopefully improbable) event that Twitter compels this deal to close and some equity partners don't come through.

In both Tesla and Twitter, Elon Musk is by far the largest individual shareholder. Before Wednesday's market opened, shares of Tesla increased by about 2%. Twitter Inc. shares increased by 3% more after rising 16% over the previous month due to investor optimism over Musk's slim chances of winning in court. Last Monday, Musk countersued Twitter, accusing the social media platform of fraud in relation to his abandoned $44 billion takeover. He asserted that Twitter deceived his staff about the size of its user base and withheld important facts.

Twitter is accused of violating a securities law in Texas, where Elon Musk resides, as well as fraud and contract breaches. Musk made a purchase offer for Twitter earlier this year, but later tried to back out of the agreement, saying the social media network had more "spam bots" and phoney accounts than Twitter had reported.