Elon Musk sells $6.9 bn worth Tesla stock in wake of Twitter poll

Elon Musk’s string of Tesla Inc. share sales carried on a fifth consecutive day, bringing the total the chief executive officer has offloaded in the wake of an unusual public poll to about $6.9 billion. The billionaire on Friday disposed of 1.2 million shares worth about $1.2 billion, according to a regulatory filing. He unloaded $5.7 billion of stock earlier in the week after asking his Twitter followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake.

Tesla shares fell 2.8% on Friday to close at $1,033.42 in New York, extending losses this week to more than 15%, its biggest weekly decline since March 2020. 

The poll was controversial for a host of reasons. For one, some of Elon Musk’s transactions were carried out this week under a trading plan he pre-arranged in September, well before he consulted his vast social media following. Musk also cast his proposal as having to do with the debate raging in the U.S. over whether billionaires are paying enough in taxes, and whether levies should be placed on unrealized capital gains.

Elon Musk also didn’t mention in his weekend tweets that he has millions of stock options that must be exercised before they expire in August 2022. He said in September that he was likely to exercise “a huge block” of those options toward the end of this year.

The documents disclosing Musk’s sales this week shed no light on whether his Twitter poll had any bearing on his decision to carry out some or all of the transactions, or whether he’ll keep selling until he’s met the 10% threshold. To get there, he’d have to get rid of roughly 17 million shares, and even more if he also includes exercisable options in his total ownership. He’s now disposed of about 6.4 million shares.

One of Tesla’s most outspoken bulls on Twitter has been critical of how Elon Musk has carried out the sales. Gary Black, a managing partner at investment adviser The Future Fund LLC, has called out the CEO for costing himself money and dragging out the process.

Elon Musk, 50, is the world’s richest person with a net worth of about $285 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.