Elon Musk Sells Nearly $5B Of Tesla Stock To Foot Tax Bill; Plan Set In Motion Months Before Twitter Poll

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk sold about $4.83 billion worth of the automaker's shares, as per Friday's closing price of $1,067.95, this week as part of a plan that was set in motion a couple of months in advance.

What Happened: The entrepreneur exercised options on over two million Tesla shares and sold over 4.5 million shares out of a stack of 170 million he owns, as per filings made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday.

Musk personally sold 934,091 shares, while other sales were made via his trust — the Elon Musk Revocable Trust.

The filings suggest Musk knew about the sale of some shares before he put out an internet poll on Sunday asking his followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. "The transactions reported on this form 4 were automatically effected pursuant to a rule 10B5-1 trading plan previously adoption on September 14, 2021," the Tesla filings with the SEC said.

The filings also state that "the shares of common stock were sold solely to satisfy the reporting person's tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options to purchase 2,154,572 shares as reported herein."

See Also: How To Buy Tesla (TSLA) Stock

Why It Matters: Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, sold $109 million worth of shares ahead of the CEO’s Twitter poll. Tesla shares fell by more than 15% in value post the poll on Monday and Tuesday.

It should be noted that Musk does not receive a salary but is instead compensated through a stock options plan.

It was reported earlier that Musk would likely stagger the sale of shares over at least two quarters.

“I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year, so ... a huge block of options will sell in Q4 — because I have to or they’ll expire,” Musk said during his appearance at the Code Conference in September. 

Price Action: On Wednesday, Tesla shares closed 4.34% higher at $1,067.95 in the regular session and gained 2.63% to $1,096 in the after-hours trading.

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Photo: Courtesy of Steve Jurvetson via Flickr