Elon Musk has sold roughly $4bn (£3.19bn) of Tesla shares over the past few days, most likely to help fund his purchase of Twitter.

The 4.4 million shares were sold at prices ranging from $872.02 to $999.13 and Mr Musk reported the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

Most of the sales took place on Tuesday – a day when shares in Tesla closed down 12%.

Mr Musk told his 88.5 million Twitter followers early on Friday: “No further TSLA sales planned after today”.

Tesla shares closed down slightly late on Thursday, and they are down 17% so far this year.

Mr Musk, the world’s richest person, offered to buy Twitter for $44bn (£35bn) earlier this month, vowing to make it a haven for free speech, reduce its reliance on advertising, and deal with the proliferation of spam-distributing bots.

While Twitter’s board has given its approval to the deal, the reaction from Twitter users has been mixed, and the deal still needs the go-ahead from shareholders and regulators.

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Analysts have also expressed concern that taking over Twitter could mean Mr Musk spends less time on Tesla, the electric car company of which he is chief executive.

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Why is the billionaire buying Twitter?

It is believed that Mr Musk will borrow up to $25.2bn (£20bn) from a number of banks to fund the takeover of Twitter, but the sale of Tesla stock could also go towards this amount.

The deal to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share is expected to conclude before the end of the year.

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