Kevin McCoy | USA TODAY

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Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is putting his money where his mouth is, spending $9.85 million to buy more shares of his Tesla electric car company after railing against short-sellers of the stock.

Tesla's CEO bought 33,180 shares in a series of Monday transactions at prices that ranged from $294.79 to $302.74, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows.

The stock buys marked Musk's biggest Tesla purchases since early 2017 and boosted his stake in the company to nearly 20%, according to data of company insiders' stock holdings compiled by Bloomberg.

Musk doubled down on his avowed confidence in Tesla after a surreal week in which he brushed off financial analysts during the company's first-quarter earnings call and tweeted plans to "burn" financial skeptics who have shorted the firm's shares in a bet that the stock will lose value.

The developments came amid Wall Street and investor concern that Tesla will need to raise new capital as it burns cash while trying to ramp up production of the company's Model 3 vehicles to meet previously announced goals.

Although Musk's purchase represented a fractional increase in his Tesla holdings, the move appeared designed to "make a statement" to financial skeptics, Pierre Ferragu, the global technology team leader for New Street Research, told Bloomberg News.

In a separate statement-making moment, South Africa-born Musk hit the red carpet at Monday night's Met Gala with Canadian musician Grimes — he accessorized with what appeared to be a Tesla pin and she wearing what looked like a Tesla choker.

Omfg Elon Musk and Grimes have arrived pic.twitter.com/xs1qU9Vv6y — Maeve McDermott (@maeve_mcdermott) May 8, 2018

Tesla's stock price slipped $1.22, or less than 1%, to $301.55 in Tuesday afternoon trading. The stock is down about 3% so far this year.

ROBERT HANASHIRO/USA TODAY

Investors sent Tesla shares lower last week after Musk insulted financial analysts during a conference call in which he said Tesla might report a profit for the first time later this year.

"Boring questions are not cool. Next," said Musk when asked by Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi about whether Tesla needed a capital infusion.

The Tesla CEO did it again when RBC Capital Markets' Joseph Spak sought comment on reservations for Tesla's Model 3.

"These questions are so dry. They're killing me," Musk said.

Nonetheless, a public filing on Monday disclosed that Tesla indeed may need to raise cash. “If we cannot raise additional funds when we need or want them, our operations and prospects could be negatively affected,” California-based Tesla said in the quarterly SEC filing.

The company said the statement represented boilerplate wording that had been used in previous SEC filings and did not represent any financial change.

Even as he touts Tesla's outlook, Musk has kept busy heading the SpaceX rocket and spacecraft company and his Boring infrastructure and tunneling company. On Sunday, he also used Twitter to float the possibility of launching a candy company.

Time

But his style of hitting back at critics — even suggesting that flamethrowers sold by Boring early this year could be used to burn short sellers — could turn off some investors.

"Elon doesn’t just do his own thing, he revels in throwing it in everyone’s face,” Karl Brauer, executive publisher of Cox Automotive, told USA TODAY as last week's Tesla earnings call approached. "That doesn't work as well for a large, mature automaker."

Contributing: Brett Molina, Marco della Cava