Elon Musk sells another $1B in Tesla stock
Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed Tuesday that he sold another
934,091 shares of the electric vehicle maker, worth some $1.05 billion,
bringing his total selling spree this month to nearly $10 billion worth of
Tesla stock.
Musk — the wealthiest man in the world, worth some $300
billion — made the sales after exercising options tied to his 2012 compensation
contract to buy 2.15 million shares, according to the filings with Securities
and Exchange Commission.
The sell-off started after Musk asked his Twitter followers
to decide whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla holdings.
The Twitter crowd voted in favor of offloading, but Musk had
already started selling shares before he asked the question, more disclosures
revealed.
He’s still about 7.9 million shares shy of meeting his
promise to sell 10 percent of this stake, but the latest sal The selling spree
has put some pressure on Tesla stock. Musk, after all, is the biggest
shareholder of the company and the liquidation of any sizeable stake would
likely send the stock downward.
Tesla stock was down more than 1 percent in premarket
trading Wednesday after falling over 4 percent on Tuesday.
The stock has dropped about 9 percent since Musk’s Nov. 8
Twitter poll. Shares are still up 57 percent since Jan. 1, though, more than
double the S&P 500’s gains over that same period.es put him across the
halfway mark.
Musk had previously warned that he would likely be selling
stock before the end of the year to cover the tax bill on his 2012 Tesla stock
options, which are set to expire next year.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Musk faced a
$3.5 billion federal tax bill on his options, though that bill would have been
even bigger had Tesla stock not tumbled down from its all-time high after he
tweeted his plans to sell.
The stock drop ended up saving Musk almost half a billion
dollars, according to the Journal’s calculations.
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