Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday that the electric automaker will begin shipping its 500 mile range Semi Truck to customers this year, and deliveries of the company’s Cybertruck will begin next year.
Tesla Semis have been seen undergoing testing at a Frito Lay facility over the past year, and the company has had special Tesla Megacharger stations designed for the Semi installed, leading to speculation the snack food company will be a major customer. PepsiCo has also reportedly ordered 100 units of the Semi.
Shares rose 1.9% pre-market on the news, even as word spread the CEO had just liquidated $6.9 billion in stock in the event he is forced to follow through on his teetering $44 billion purchase of Twitter, according to SEC filings revealed Tuesday.
According to the filing, Musk sold 7.9 million shares of Tesla from Friday to Tuesday, at prices ranging from $838.57 to $911.75 – for roughly $6.9 billion.
Investors were also processing the announcement that shares will begin trading on their three-to-one split-adjusted basis Aug 25th.
Overall Tesla is down 20% year to date, while the S&P 500 has only fallen 13.5%.