Elon Musk sells $7 billion in Tesla shares ahead of Twitter fight

Elon Musk has sold nearly $7 billion worth of shares in Tesla as the billionaire gets his finances in order ahead of his court battle with Twitter.

Musk disclosed in a series of regulatory filings that he unloaded about 8 million shares of his company Tesla Inc. in recent days, AP reported.

“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted.

Musk is by far the largest individual shareholder in both Tesla and Twitter.

Shares of Tesla rose 4% to close Wednesday at $883.07. Shares of Twitter Inc. jumped 3.7% to close at $44.43, and are up 36% since July 11, with most believing Musk faces long-shot odds of success in court.

Musk countersued Twitter last week, accusing the company of fraud over his aborted $44 billion acquisition. He claimed that Twitter held back critical information and misled his team about the size of its user base.

Musk alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract and violation of a securities law in Texas, where Musk lives.

Musk offered to buy Twitter earlier this year, then tried to back out of the deal claiming the social platform was infested with a larger numbers of “spam bots” and fake accounts than Twitter had disclosed.