By
Steve Muchoki
March 29th, 2024
The current capitalization of the Tesla company is $1.06 trillion.
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has sold around $5 billion of his TSLA holdings, following the Twitter poll on the 6th of November. In the poll, Musk asked his millions of followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares. The CEO also added that he would go by the poll result, which will either make him sell his TSLA shares or hold on to them. Noting that his salary and bonuses are not in cash, Musk stated that he only has TSLA. That is, he can only say his huge tax bill by selling some of his Tesla stock.
Musk Sells $5Bn of TSLA Stock Holdings
As stated in filings on the 10th of November, Musk said he sold $5 billion in shares, equaling about 3% of his total TSLA shares. The billionaire sold $1.1 billion worth of his shares, about $934,000 shares under an options arrangement. The stock was sold to acquire almost 2.2 million shares. In addition, about 3.6 million shares, amounting to about $4 billion. This could be considered as a part of the 10% pledge from the Twitter poll.
Before the shares sales, Musk used to own about 23% of Tesla, and TSLA holdings account for a large percentage of his net worth. Earlier this week, the ock of the electric vehicle maker dropped 12%, wavering Tesla’s $1 trillion market cap. However, the stock has recovered since then, and it is still in the $1 trillion club.
The Tesla CEO still has over 20 million stock options that are due in August next year. According to the chief investment officer at Hyperion Asset Management in Brisbane, Mark Arnold, there would be a slight negative near term if Musk sold 10% of his Tesla Shares, according to the result of the poll. The chief investment officer noted:
“But the stock is pretty liquid and its not a huge percentage of total issued shares, so it shouldn’t have that much of an impact… we’re quite comfortable with the outlook for the business.”
Tesla Stock
Over the past week, Tesla has lost nearly $150 billion in its market valuation. Reports showed that retail investors are the net buyers of TSLA. Yesterday, 58% of Tesla trade orders on the Fidelity brokerage website were for purchase other than sales.
Tesla is currently at a premarket trading price of $1,100.91, a 3.08% increase over its previous close of $1,067.95. In the last twelve months, TSLA has jumped more than 159.36%. Also, the EV company has added more than 51.34% since the beginning of the year. Tesla shares surged significantly last month on the news of the 100,000 vehicles ordered by Hertz.
The current capitalization of the Tesla company is $1.06 trillion.