Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has sold another 22 million shares, worth $3.58 billion (£2.9 billion), in electric car maker Tesla.
Shares
were sold a few days ago, according to a filing with a US financial regulator.
The total number of Tesla shares sold by Musk over the past year is almost $40 billion.
Earlier this week, Musk lost his position as the world’s richest person.
The reason for the recent share sales was not disclosed.
He remains Tesla’s largest shareholder with a 13.4% stake, according to financial market data provider Refinitiv.
Last month, Musk revealed he had sold 19.5 million shares of Tesla worth $3.95 billion, just days after completing the $44 billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter.
Tesla is one of the worst-performing stocks among major automakers and tech companies this year, as investors worry that Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is distracting him.
On Wednesday, the value of Tesla shares listed on the tech-heavy Nasdaq index in New York closed below $500 billion for the first time since 2020.
At the end of last year the company was worth more than $1 trillion, but its value has fallen in recent months.
Musk completed his takeover of Twitter in October and has since focused a significant amount of his time on the business.
He sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock to help finance his buyout, which helped send the stock lower.
The Itter deal was completed only after months of legal wrangling, and some have cited the distraction of the acquisition as another factor behind Tesla’s share price decline.
Investors have also been concerned that demand for the company’s electric cars could slow as the economy weakens, higher borrowing costs discourage buyers and other companies ramp up their electric vehicle offerings.
Tesla has also been hit by recalls as well as government investigations into crashes and its Autopilot feature.
Musk also lost his position as the world’s richest person after a sharp drop in the value of his Tesla shares this year.
According to ‘Forbes’ and ‘Bloomberg’, he was surpassed in first place by Bernard Arnault, chief executive of the luxury goods group LVMH.
Elon Musk’s fortune is now 174 billion dollars, Arnault’s fortune is almost 191 billion dollars, according to Forbes.
