Medium Drop

Elon Musk Just Sold $5 Billion of His Tesla Stock

Whoa.
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According to new financial filings, Elon Musk appears to have unloaded approximately $1.1 billion worth of his stock in Tesla.
LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 03: Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. leaves the US District Court, Central District of California through a back door in Los Angeles, U.S. on December 3, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. The defamation lawsuit against Tesla CEO Elon Musk began in Los Angeles over calling British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth "'Pedo Guy" and rapist. Unsworth was one of the first cave divers to reach the trapped boys in the flooded Tham Luong caves in Thailand. (Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images) Image: Getty

Sell! Sell!

This past weekend, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk polled his Twitter followers on whether he should sell ten percent of his Tesla stock.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 percent of my Tesla stock,” the billionaire tweeted at the time. “Do you support this?”

Ultimately, 57 percent of respondents said that he should — and now, according to new financial filings, he appears to have started, by unloading approximately $5 billion worth of the holdings.

Mega Swell

The drama all comes after an enormous upswell in Tesla’s stock price, which just recently exceeded a trillion dollars in value.

Of course, $5 billion is nowhere near ten percent of Musk’s Tesla stock. To make good on his promise, he’d need to unload around $20 billion.

Musk’s claim that the sale was a way to pay taxes has come under some scrutiny, with critics pointing out that he’d owe heavy taxes on the stock if he didn’t sell, thanks to the structure of his stock options.

The question that’ll be pressing most heavily on Tesla investors, though, is how it’s going to affect the electric carmaker’s stock price for everybody else.

Story updated to reflect that Musk had sold even more stock than was initially clear.

More on Musk: Elon Musk Says He Wants to Start a University With a Dirty Name

Jon Christian Avatar

Jon Christian

Executive Editor

I’m the executive editor at Futurism, assigning, editing, and reporting on everything from artificial intelligence and space exploration to the personalities shaping the tech sector.