Musk is cashing out again! Investors are confused: Didn't Musk just say on the front foot that he had sold enough?
The latest regulatory documents show that on Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold more than 930,000 shares of Tesla stock.
Why say "again"? Because Musk just sold Tesla stock on Tuesday, in an interview with Forbes on Tuesday, he also said that he had sold "enough stock" to fulfill his plan to sell.
However, the billionaire said "enough" and physically "honestly" sold more than $900 million worth of Tesla stock. At present, Musk has sold more than $15 billion.
Ahead of Wednesday's latest sale plan, Musk is more than three-quarters past his promise to sell 10 percent of Tesla stock, or about 80 percent of what he had planned to sell.
Investors are delighted to think that his two-month frenzy is finally coming to an end and push Tesla stock above $1,000 again.
Musk has now exercised almost all of his stock options that will expire next August. Wednesday's latest deal is part of a plan to exercise options and sell stock that Musk laid out on Sept. 14. Musk has exercised about 21.3 million of those options.
Musk also said on Twitter on Wednesday:
There are a few more to sell, but almost done.
Musk will sell at least $2 million?
The storm over Musk's sale of shares began with a Twitter inquiry. Musk launched a vote with Twitter users on November 6 on whether he should sell 10% of tesla shares after making plans to sell his shares.
Unexpectedly, 60% of netizens agreed with Musk's selling stocks, so Musk began to sell stocks from November 8.
Initially, Musk sold shares for three consecutive days on November 8, November 9, and November 10, selling about 4.52 million shares and cashing out about $4.5 billion to about $5 billion, and the frequency of cashing out has decreased since then.
Since Nov. 8, Musk has sold about 14.8 million shares and exercised a total of 20 million stock options, representing 87 percent of his previously committed shares and worth more than $15 billion.
For now, Musk will have to sell at least another nearly $2 million more of Tesla stock to deliver on his 10 percent promise. The exact number depends on how he defines his own shares.
Musk, 50, is currently the richest man in the world, topping bloomberg's list of billionaires.
Exercising Tesla stock options has given Musk more stock than he held when he launched the vote on Twitter, and he now holds more than 177 million tesla shares and a net worth of about $261 billion.
It is worth mentioning that on Sunday, Musk said on Twitter that he will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year, or will become the largest taxpayer in US history.
After Musk began selling shares last month, Tesla's stock price began to fluctuate and decline.
Tesla's latest market shows that it closed up 5.76% last night at $1,067, and Tesla's market value has shrunk by more than $200 billion compared to before Musk did not sell stocks.
