Elon Musk, Halfway Through His Pledge, Has Sold $11 Billion of Tesla Stock

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk has sold nearly $11 billion (roughly Rs. 82,850 crore) worth of shares since the world’s richest person polled Twitter users about offloading 10 percent of his stake in the electric-car maker.

He has sold a combined 10.1 million shares, which is over half of the stake that he had pledged to sell, and has acquired 10.7 million shares by exercising options, since November 8.

How did Musk sell?

Musk said on November 6 he would sell 10 percent of his stake if Twitter users agreed. He owned a combination of about 244 million shares through his trust and stock options, bringing his stake in Tesla to about 23 percent as of June 30. It included 170 million shares held by his trust.

The tweet was vague. Musk did not outline if he was intending to offload 10 percent of the shares he indirectly owned through the trust or if his stock options were also part of the deal.

Following a flurry of options exercise, Musk still has an option to buy about 10 million more shares at $6.24 (roughly Rs. 470)  each, which expires in August next year.

© Thomson Reuters 2021