Gary Zhou 
Elon Musk’s sale of Tesla stock continued on Monday evening. New S-4 filings with the SEC showed Musk offloaded an additional $931 million worth of $TSLA holdings, bringing the grand total so far to $7.8 billion.
Musk plans to sell 10% of his Tesla shares, according to a Twitter poll the South African-born CEO put up on November 6th. Musk stated that he was selling the stock to pay into taxes on unrealized capital gains, but he may be intending to exercise options that will expire in August 2022.
Musk’s Monday moves on Tesla stock included the sale of 934,000 shares and exercising 2.1 million options, according to SEC filings. The sale of stock and moves on options on Monday was nearly identical to what Musk did on Monday, November 8th. The only major difference was the value of the sale. Tesla’s stock price on Monday was less than what it was on November 8th, so the value of the sale accumulated $931 million in cash. Last Monday’s sale resulted in $1.1 billion.
The Tesla CEO is roughly halfway through his stock sale, which will accumulate nearly $15 billion for Musk to use, likely for a hefty tax bill that will require him to pay nearly $10 billion on his exercised options, which are taxed at a rate of 40.8%.
Musk has remained a man of his word throughout the sale of his holdings. While the Twitter poll that Musk put up ended with 57.9% of respondents wanting him to offload Tesla shares and the CEO personally stating that he would abide by the results, he has maintained a swift and consistent behavior in the sale of his stock. Tesla has filed S-4 forms nearly every day since last Wednesday, which was two days after the first stock sale. The SEC requires the S-4 forms to be published within two business days of the stock sale.
Tesla stock has not suffered greatly despite Musk offloading shares. Since last Wednesday, the stock has actually increased in value by 3.46%, trading at $1,043.96 at the time of writing. Tesla has maintained its trillion-dollar valuation through most of the stock sale, only dipping under the Four Comma Club for a short period during trading on Monday, only to recover at reobtain its $1T valuation
Tesla stock is up 3.35 on Tuesday.
