Elon Musk Isn’t Done Selling Tesla Stock. Here’s How Much He Just Sold.

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Dec. 9, 2021 was a day being watched intently by

Tesla

buyers. They wished excellent news that might ship shares larger. Instead, they acquired extra Elon Musk stock sales.

Social-media-fueled hypothesis had bulls hoping 12/9 would carry potential excellent news starting from a inventory break up to a brand new product. Tesla (ticker: TSLA) didn’t give any indication one thing was up. It was a case of the web doing web issues.

The solely factor that occurred was Musk offered extra inventory as a part of a prearranged plan to train expiring administration inventory choices. The SEC filings detailing the gross sales had been launched at roughly 8:20 p.m. japanese time.

Musk bought one other 2.2 million Tesla (ticker: TSLA) shares for $6.24 a bit. He offered one other 934,091 shares to pay taxes on the beneficial properties. Gains derived from administration inventory choices are taxed like strange revenue when administration workouts them.

Musk has bought about 13 million shares by exercising his inventory choices and offered about 5.6 million of these shares to pay the taxes. He has exercised about half of the choices acquired from a 2012 grant. Those choices had been on account of expire in mid-2022.

At the present tempo of train, there may be about three weeks left earlier than Musk will likely be performed with these choices. It’s troublesome to know precisely when Musk will likely be performed. Details of Musk’s prearranged plan to train simply aren’t identified. Tesla hasn’t responded to a number of requests for remark about Musk’s inventory gross sales.

Musk offered one other 4.Eight million shares that weren’t part of choices grants. He requested his

Twitter

(TWTR) followers again in early November if he ought to promote inventory and pay taxes on unrealized capital beneficial properties. His followers voted yes and Musk, in consequence, has offered greater than 10 million shares price greater than $11 billion.

All the promoting has created an overhang in Tesla shares. The inventory is off about 17% since Musk’s

Twitter

ballot. The

S&P 500
and

Dow Jones Industrial Average
are down about 0.6% and 1.6%, respectively, over the identical span. Tesla inventory was down one other 1.2% in premarket buying and selling Friday.

Part of the issue has been the tempo of sale. Musk has elected to train choices and promote inventory very slowly. He may have performed it abruptly utilizing a dealer to handle a secondary inventory providing. Instead, he has offered inventory in additional than 600 separate transactions.

Tesla buyers in all probability would have most well-liked the gross sales to occur quicker. At this level, buyers will simply be joyful when the promoting is over.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com