Elon Musk, Tesla CEO
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- Elon Musk exercised an option to buy about 1.6 million shares of Tesla on Tuesday.
- The billionaire also sold over 934,00 shares for $1.02 billion.
- Musk’s stock sales are carried out to cover taxes on the exercise of the option under a prearranged trading plan.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has exercised the last of his stock options under a prearranged trading plan.
On Tuesday, Musk exercised an option to buy about 1.6 million Tesla shares, according to a regulatory filing. According to that filing and another document also filed on Tuesday, the billionaire also sold over 934,00 shares for $1.02 billion.
Musk’s stock sales will cover taxes on the exercise of the option under a prearranged trading plan set up in September. Tuesday’s filings confirmed that the “10b5-1 trading plan” was completed on December 28, 2021.
Musk has so far acquired 22.86 million shares through exercising options set to expire next year, according to a Reuters’ calculation.
Tesla CEO Musk has been on a stock-selling spree since conducting a November 6 Twitter poll asking followers if he should divest 10% of his stake. The answer was a resounding yes.
Musk would need to sell a total of about 17 million shares to dump 10% of his stake in Tesla, excluding exercisable options, according to a Bloomberg tally. Tuesday’s sale takes Musk’s total to about 15.6 million shares, according to the news outlet.
Musk tweeted on December 22 that he would meet the 10% share sale target when he completes his “preprogrammed” sales.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 22, 2021
Despite the share sales, the transactions still leave Musk with more Tesla shares than when he started selling.
He now owns over 177 million shares after exercising up options — up from around 170.5 million shares, according to the WSJ.
Musk has a net worth of $279 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
