Elon Musk sells 5 billion dollars in shares on the advice of his fans on Twitter!
Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he sold $5 billion in shares in the company, a few days after he asked Twitter users to sell 10 percent of his stake.
In his first stock sale since 2016, Musk sold nearly 3.6 million Tesla shares, worth about $4 billion, and sold another 934,000 shares for $1.1 billion after activating options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares.
Sold shares equal about 3 percent of his total holdings in the electric car maker, which makes up the bulk of his $281.6 billion fortune, according to Forbes.
On Saturday, Musk began selling opinions on Twitter about 10 percent of his holdings, which helped push Tesla's share price down, after a majority supported the sale.
The stock fell 12 percent on Tuesday in a multi-day selloff that put the company's standing as one of the more than $1 trillion companies at risk, but the stock rose 4.3 percent on Wednesday.
The sale of the additional shares was separate and gave Musk ample reserves of cash, as his wealth is closely linked to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
Although Tesla lost nearly $150 billion in market value this week, retail investors were net buyers of the shares, netting $157 million on Monday and Tuesday, according to Vanda Research.
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