(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk resumed selling shares in Tesla Inc. and passed the halfway point toward making good on a plan to offload 10% of his stake in the electric-car maker.
Most Read from Bloomberg
Billionaire Family Feud Puts a Century-Old Business Empire in Jeopardy
Asia’s Richest Man Looks to Walton Family Playbook on Succession
The 24-Year-Old Aiming to Dethrone Victoria’s Secret
The Winners and Losers From a Year of Ranking Covid Resilience
An Arab City’s Booming Art Scene Is Also a Grab at Soft Power
The billionaire offloaded another 934,091 shares for $1.05 billion, according to regulatory filings posted late Tuesday. The sales were carried out to cover taxes related to Musk exercising an additional 2.15 million stock options, the documents show.
With the most recent disposals, Musk now has sold 9.2 million shares worth about $9.9 billion since he conducted a Twitter poll asking whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla holding. A chunk of that money will go to taxes.
To reach the 10% threshold, Musk would need to sell some 17 million shares, or about 1.7% of the company’s outstanding stock. If his exercisable options are factored into his overall ownership, he’ll need to sell even more.
Since the Twitter poll, Musk has exercised millions of options that were less than a year from their expiration date. In September, he established a pre-arranged trading plan to carry out “an orderly sale of shares related to the exercise of stock options,” filings show. Musk didn’t mention the existence of that plan in his tweets early this month.
Tesla shares fell 3.5% to $1,070.25 at 9:43 a.m. in New York. The stock has traded down about 12% since Musk’s poll.
Musk, 50, is the world’s richest person with a $303.7 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s added $133.9 billion to his net worth this year — more than anyone else — amid a 57% jump in Tesla shares.
(Updates with share price in sixth paragraph.)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
Medical Debt Is Crushing Black Americans, and Hospitals Aren’t Helping
Wildfires Are Getting Worse, and One Chemical Company Is Reaping the Benefits
How Child Care Became the Most Broken Business in America
Boeing Built an Unsafe Plane, and Blamed the Pilots When It Crashed
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
