Elon Musk sells another huge chunk of Tesla shares

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold about 22 million more shares of his electric vehicle business, which were worth around $3.6 billion, according to a financial filing out Wednesday night. The transactions took place between Monday and Wednesday of this week according to the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Earlier this year, Musk told his millions of followers on social media that he had “no further TSLA sales planned” after April 28.

According to financial research firm VerityData, Musk has sold 94,202,321 shares so far this year at an average price of $243.46 per share for pretax proceeds of approximately $22.93 billion.

Director of research for VerityData, Ben Silverman, wrote in an email to CNBC on Wednesday, “Musk’s prior sales going back to November 2021 were expertly timed, so Tesla shareholders need to pay attention to Musk’s actions and not his words – or lack thereof when it comes to his recent selling.”

However, he continued to sell portions of his sizable holdings in Tesla after agreeing to buy Twitter in a deal worth $44 billion. The acquisition closed in late October. Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX, a major defense contractor, immediately appointed himself chief executive of the social media company.

After Musk’s Twitter takeover, he told employees there that he sold Tesla shares to “save” their business.

Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla shares have been declining this year, and sliding even further since he took on that new responsibility.

Shares of Tesla closed down 2.6% on Wednesday at $156.80, dropping the company’s market capitalization to $495 billion. Tesla shares were down 55% year to date as of Wednesday’s close.