US billionaire Elon Musk has sold 4.4 million shares of the company he founded, Tesla Inc, according to regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Musk made the trades on the stock exchange on Tuesday and Thursday – that is, two days after the Twitter Inc. deal. The price of sold shares ranged from $870 to $1 thousand per paper, according to the documents. In this way, the billionaire was able to raise about $4 billion.

Before this week’s stock sale, Musk owned about 17%, or more than 171 million shares, according to FactSet.

As part of the Twitter deal, the businessman is expected to commit $21 billion of his own money. That amount includes $12.5 billion in loan financing that the billionaire borrowed against a pledge of Tesla shares worth more than $62.5 billion. The company itself and several banks have applied a rule that requires Musk to increase the number of shares in the pledge if Tesla’s stock drops in value.

Meanwhile, Musk wrote on his Twitter account on Thursday that he no longer intends to sell shares in the company “after today.” The billionaire did not respond to a question from The Wall Street Journal about whether he sold Tesla shares on Thursday.

Musk’s fortune is estimated at $252 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the world’s wealthiest man. But most of his wealth comes in the form of stakes in the companies he founded, Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX). Musk does not receive a salary at these companies, although he is a member of top management. Instead, he receives stock compensation.

For a long time Musk did not want to reduce his stake in Tesla, but last year he sold the company’s securities for more than $16 billion. Most of this amount went to pay taxes due to the fact that he exercised options on the company’s shares, which expired in 2021.

Meanwhile, Musk’s influence in Tesla may shrink with the stock sale, as the company does not issue a separate class of securities reserved for founders that gives more voting rights than a regular share. This equity structure is in place at Meta Platforms Inc. (recognized as an extremist organization in Russia and banned) and Alphabet Inc. for example.

In addition to the Tesla shares that Musk already owns, the businessman also has options on tens of millions of the company’s securities as part of a package agreed in 2018. He can exercise these options if the company reaches certain quarterly targets.

Tesla’s stock price has fallen about 19 percent since April 1, the last trading session before Musk disclosed his 9.2 percent stake on Twitter. In Thursday trading, the company’s securities fell 0.45% to $877.51.