Tesla shares worth $906.5 million sold by Elon Musk
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, sold 934,091 shares of $906.49 million late Monday, according to two SEC filings.
He also exercised 2.13 million stock options at $6.24 each, issued to him in 2012.
Tesla’s stock dropped 5% to $966.41 on Monday.
The Tesla CEO’s recent insider trades were part of a “Rule 10b5-1” trading plan dated Sept. 14, the documents revealed. This type of scheme permits insiders to trade their stock at a future period.
Musk, the world’s richest man and Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2021, still has millions of stock options to exercise by August 2022. He said he will sell a lot of stock in the fourth quarter during the 2021 Code Conference on Sept. 28.
Musk, asked his Twitter followers on Nov. 6 whether he should sell a 10% stake in his electric car and solar businesses. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?”
He asked his tens of millions of followers to vote “Yes” or “No” and claimed he would respect the outcome. According to Twitter’s poll results, 3.5 million people voted yes, 57.9%.
“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “It’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax.”
Musk, opposed to a billionaire’s tax and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better programme, shot back at Wyden.
Musk recently stated at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit that “zeroing out all billionaires” would not fix the US deficit. He slammed the “anti-billionaire” mood in America.
Musk still needs to sell about 5 million Tesla shares to fulfil his Twitter poll promise.
Earlier this month, Musk sold $963.2 million worth of Tesla stock, pushing his December sales to almost $2.87 billion. In November, he sold $9.85 billion in Tesla stock.
Along with Musk, Tesla executives Zachary Kirkhorn, Taneja Vaibhav, and Drew Baglino sold Tesla stock and exercised options in December.