Arguably the biggest news in the automotive and tech industries this week was the massive Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) recall of nearly half a million vehicles due to camera malfunctions and faulty latches on front trunks. Long before that recall began, however, CEO Elon Musk made another big splash when he proposed a plan to sell 10% of his Tesla holdings. On Dec. 29, Musk sold off another 934,000 shares and says he's now completed his plan.
Since his prearranged sales plan began, Musk has sold off roughly 15.6 million shares, with a monetary value of $17 billion. For reference, Musk's total net worth is $279 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The sales came after Musk posted to Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) asking users to vote via a poll on whether or not he should sell "10% of [his] Tesla stock." The poll received more than 3.5 million votes, with 58% of users coming out in support of the sale. Once the results of the poll had been determined, Tesla's share price fell by 7% in premarket trading.
In order to meet his 10% pledge, Musk will need to sell at least another million shares. Despite this Musk told The Babylon Bee that he had completed the sale. After announcing his sales were over, Tesla's share price rose by 7%.
"I sold enough stock to get to around 10%, plus the option exercise stuff," Musk told the Bee.
Later on Twitter, Musk added: "When the 10b preprogrammed sales complete. There are still a few tranches left, but almost done."
In accordance with his compensation package from Tesla, Musk says he doesn't "take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere" and is instead compensated in company stock options. The better the company does, the better Musk does financially. Musk claims that selling his shares is "the only way for [him] to pay taxes personally".
The sales were made under what's known as 10b5-1 and are meant to cover taxes on exercised stock options set to expire in August. However, not all of the money made on these sales is being put towards taxes on Musk's options exercise, according to securities filings.
While Musk has sold off almost 16 million shares, he has simultaneously exercised his stock options in order to accumulate another 22.9 million shares in compensation, meaning he actually has more shares than he started with. Before the poll, Musk had 170.5 million shares. Now he has 177 million.