Billionaire businessman Elon Musk sold Tesla shares worth nearly $7 billion, according to a legal document released Tuesday, amid a legal battle with Twitter over a $44 billion buyout deal. The founder of the automaker Tesla sold about 7.9 million shares between August 5 and 9, according to the document published on the website of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. “In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners do not participate, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk, the world’s richest man, wrote. , Tuesday on Twitter.

Twitter is waging a legal battle with the temperamental Musk over his attempt to get out of an April deal to buy the social network, and a judge ordered a trial in October. Musk has filed a countersuit in which he accuses Twitter of fraud and alleges that the platform misled him about key aspects of the company before agreeing to buy it for $44 billion. The Tesla boss sold about $8.5 billion worth of shares in the electric-car maker in April as he prepared to finance the Twitter purchase.