By
Svetlana Soroka
April 18th, 2024
Musk received an award of options on 22.8 million shares worth around $28 billion last fall when the CEO began to sell stocks.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk still owns large shares of the EV company despite unloading huge stock sales last year. In 2021, Musk sold a significant quantity of his TSLA stock, option exercises, tax payment sales, and gifted shares, which amounted to about $22 billion. According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the amount of shares Musk sold was $16 billion. In addition, the CEO distributed 5 million shares as gifts, which was valued at almost $6 billion. He gave the gift to an unidentified charity in November 2021.
Musk Offloads TSLA Stock
Despite unleashing so much stock, Musk still owns a larger share of the company due to its compensation package. He received an award of options on 22.8 million shares worth around $28 billion last fall when the CEO began to sell. At first, Musk started converting his millions of options into shares. He was able to pay $6.24 per option to get a share of TSLA, which traded at over $1,000 last fall. After each conversion, Musk was able to sell shares to pay the taxes. Simultaneously, he was amassing larger amounts of stock at low options prices. This way, the CEO’s ownership of the company continued to increase.
Altogether, Musk let go of 15.7 million shares for $16.4 billion. In addition to the gifted shares, he unleashed 20.7 million shares. Rather than losing, the EV maker CEO gained 22.8 million shares, thanks to its options exercise. With the gains, Musk had an additional 2 million shares in Tesla stock at the end of last year. Currently, the Tesla CEO owns 172.6 million shares, giving him a 15% stake in the company. As it stands, Musk’s stake in Tesla makes him the single largest individual shareholder.
Musk’s Seeks Followers Opinion on Shares Activity
Back in November, Musk allowed his Twitter followers to have a say on his shares activity. He created a poll, letting the followers pick either “yes” or “no,” while stating:
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.”
He added that he would abide by the poll result, regardless of whatever it is. At the end of the poll, 58% voted for the sale, while 42% voted against it.
With a market capitalization of $953.34 billion, TSLA is currently trading at $923 in the pre-market hours after gaining over 5% yesterday. The company has grown nearly 16% in the last twelve months and 0.05% in the last five days. However, the company has dropped 12,71% since the year started and plunged 12.54% in the last three months. Over the past months, TSLA has declined 10.49%,