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Elon Musk offloaded US$6,9 billion of stock in Tesla, the billionaire’s biggest sale on record, saying he wanted to avoid a last-minute selloff of the electric-car maker’s shares in the event he is forced to go ahead with his aborted deal to buy Twitter.

Tesla’s chief executive officer sold about 7.92 million shares on August 5, according to a series of regulatory filings that landed after US markets closed Tuesday. As speculation mounted over the reason for the disposal, Musk responded in a series of late night tweets, saying he wanted to avert an emergency sale of stock if he is compelled to complete the US$44 billion takeover of Twitter, which he walked away from last month.

Asked by followers if he was done selling Tesla shares and would buy the stock again if the deal doesn’t close, Musk responded: “Yes.”

The sale comes just four months after Musk, the world’s richest person, said he had no further plans to sell shares in the carmaker he’s built into a global force after disposing of US$8,5 billion of stock in the wake of his initial offer to buy Twitter. Since then, Tesla’s shares have rebounded from lows reached in May, benefiting from broader gains in US equities.

“He certainly is clarifying that he is cashing up for Twitter,” said Charu Chanana, strategist at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore.

“The timing of the sale — just ahead of the US CPI release — does say something though. The bear market rally has started to falter, and further repricing of Fed expectations could mean more pain for equities ahead, especially in tech.”

Tesla shares have risen about 35 percent from this year’s lows, though are still down about 20 percent this year.- Bloomberg