Elon Musk says we're 'overdue' for a recession, won't sell any more Tesla stock for 18-24 months: 'I need to sell some stock to make sure there was powder dry to account for a worst-case scenario'

• Elon Musk said in a Twitter Spaces chat that he would not sell more Tesla stock for the next 18-24 months.
• Musk told listeners on the chat that he needed "powder dry" to prepare for a potential recession.

Elon Musk told Tesla investors he wouldn't sell additional shares of his EV company in the near future and that he only sold recently to prepare for a potential recession.

"I'm not selling any stock for, I don't know, at minimum 18 to 24 months. So you can count on no stock sales until 2025 or something," Musk said in a Twitter Spaces chat on Thursday.

"I needed to sell some stock to make sure there was powder dry to account for a worst-case scenario," he added.

This isn't the first time Musk has vowed not to sell more Tesla stock this year. In August, after selling more than $8 billion worth of Tesla stock to help finance his purchase of Twitter, Musk tweeted, "no further TSLA sales planned after today."

Earlier this month, he sold another $3.6 billion in Tesla shares, though. The stock traded at a 52-week low as of Thursday's close.

Musk weighed in on the broader economy with a gloomy outlook for the coming year: "from a long-term standpoint, there's a natural economic cycle that happens, and frankly, we're overdue for a recession," he said.

"It's shocking that we haven't had an economic recession in any meaningful sense of the word since 2009," he added.

Some investors have expressed worry that Musk has become disengaged as Tesla's CEO as he shifts his focus to leading Twitter, further causing Tesla's stock to sink.

However, Musk said that "there was not a single important meeting that I missed" at Tesla since taking the reigns at Twitter, telling listeners in the Spaces chat that he only sold Tesla shares because he's "somewhat paranoid, having gone through two very intense recessions."