Elon Musk sold $4 billion in Tesla after announcing $44 billion Twitter deal

Experts think Musk may have needed to sell some of his shares to finance the $21 billion in required equity.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Elon Musk sold about $4 billion of shares in Tesla Inc. shortly after announcing his $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter Inc.

Musk, who has served as CEO of Tesla since 2008, sold off 4.4 million shares on April 26 and 27, according to filings obtained Thursday by Bloomberg.

Experts think Musk may have needed to sell some of his shares to finance the $21 billion in equity that he personally guaranteed in the Twitter transaction.

Confirming the sales, Musk tweeted, "No further TSLA sales planned after today."

Tesla shares fell by 12% on Tuesday, the first day Musk started selling his stocks, but the price did not change much over the next two days.