Musk sells $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock ahead of the takeover of Twitter.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, sold $8.5 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle firm, according to US securities filings, likely to help fund his proposed acquisition of Twitter.

“There are no further TSLA sales planned after today,” Musk declared in a tweet on Thursday. According to the papers on Thursday and Friday, he sold around 9.6 million shares this week, or about 5.6 percent of his interest in the company.

It was unclear whether Musk’s recent Tesla stock sales had been reported in full. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters right away.

The sale comes after Musk said on Monday that he had agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in cash, a deal that will give the world’s richest person control of the social media network used by millions of people and world leaders. According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth is $268 billion.

Musk stated that he will contribute a $21 billion equity investment as part of the purchase.

It was unclear how the billionaire planned to raise the remaining $12.5 billion in stock capital. Musk owns a 43.61 percent ownership in SpaceX, a $100 billion rocket company that isn’t publicly traded.

Tesla’s stock increased by approximately 5% in morning trading on Friday.

They’ve lost nearly 20% of their value after Musk revealed he had a more than 9% stake in the company.

A person familiar with the subject told Reuters that Musk has been looking for partners to lower his equity stake to the deal, but that such a partner is unlikely to emerge.

This is his first Tesla stock transaction since he sold $16.4 billion worth of shares in November and December after polling Twitter users about selling 10% of his ownership in the electric vehicle manufacturer.

Musk announced on Twitter that he will owe more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 as a result of exercising stock options that are supposed to expire this year.

Some traders have expressed concern this week that Musk may not have enough cash on hand to cover his $21 billion cash contribution, and that he may pull out of the agreement.