Tesla inc. : After starting sale of 10% of his shares, Musk still flies over billionaire rankings

(BFM Bourse) – Following his infamous Twitter poll last weekend, the founder of Tesla this week started selling shares in the electric vehicle maker. Having sold only a little more than a quarter of the 10% block of his shares which he announced to be divested, Elon Musk has already collected several billion dollars.

The expression keep it under your feet takes on its full meaning. As of Monday, the Tesla boss has sold around $ 5 billion in shares of his company, which currently weighs more than $ 1 trillion on the stock market, starting to execute the project that he took care to have “ratified” beforehand through a survey Twitter.

According to the various statements sent to the American financial market policeman, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the leader on Monday sold 934,091 Tesla shares for $ 1.1 billion, in the wake of the exercise of stock options that allowed him to ” acquire nearly 2.2 million shares at the symbolic price of 6.24 dollars each, a fraction of the current price (the gain between the real price and the exercise price is taxed as soon as the stock is exercised). options in the United States, whether the shares are retained or subsequently sold).

He then sold nearly 3.6 million shares (3,088,047 Tuesday and 500,000 Wednesday) so far held through a trust, the entity through which Elon Musk manages most of his stake in Tesla. .

The billionaire sold more than 4.5 million shares in three days. Previously, its stake represented a total of around 170 million Tesla shares, which means that nearly three-quarters of the target volume of 10% (17 million shares) that it has announced it wants to sell remains to be sold.

By revealing his intention to sell this 10% block – an operation that is in fact almost inevitable given the nearly $ 15 billion in taxes he will have to pay in order to exercise new stock options maturing in the year next, except to lose his rights to the underlying shares- Elon Musk caused a 4.84% drop in price on Monday, which was accentuated on Tuesday (-12%), after a new historic peak last week until ‘to more than 1200 euros. On Wednesday, however, the price started to recover (+ 4.34%) and Tesla did not leave the very closed club of companies valued at more than 1000 billion of dollars. So that the position of the richest man in the world of Elon Musk, acquired at the beginning of the year, was in no way threatened …

Guillaume Bayre – © 2021 BFM Bourse