Elon Musk sold another $930 million worth of Tesla stock, on top of last week's $6.9 billion
Steph Deschamps / November 16, 2021
Musk's latest stock sale is related to the exercise of call options that expire in 2022. These allowed him to acquire 2.1 million shares for $6.24 each when Tesla's closing price on Monday was more than $1,013. The sale of shares should allow Elon Musk to cover the cost of exercising his call options and the resulting taxes. Indeed, taxes are due on the difference between the exercise price of the options and the market price of the shares.
Last week, Musk also sold a considerable amount of stock before exercising his options to buy 2.2 million shares at a low price. Musk received these options as part of his compensation as a senior executive at Tesla. In this position, he does not receive a fixed salary, but only bonuses and options based on the achievement of certain goals.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk had conducted a poll, from his Twitter account, to know whether or not he should part with 10% of his Tesla shares and thus pay more taxes. Some 57.9% of the 3.5 million voters had answered favorably. Last week, the billionaire sold a total of about $6.9 billion worth of shares.
During the Twitter vote, Musk said nothing about his stock sale plans related to the exercise of his options, which had actually been planned since September.