ELON MUSK has sold nearly $7bn (£5.7bn) worth of Tesla shares in the last week as his battle with Twitter over his botched takeover heads to court, it was revealed late on Tuesday.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Musk said he had sold the shares "to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock" in the event that Twitter forces the deal to close, a case that Musk called "hopefully unlikely".

Musk, tech entrepreneur and the world's richest man, will head to trial on 17 October over his retracted $44bn bid to buy Twitter.

Musk also sold $8.5bn worth of Tesla shares in April.

Musk's Twitter takeover, approved by the social media giant's board in June, fell into turmoil last month when the Tesla owner withdrew his bid over claims he had been misled on the number of bots on the site.

The ditched bid sent the social media giant's shares below the price he had agreed to pay for them.

Twitter has since blamed Musk for declining revenue.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper