Elon Musk sold a large chunk of Tesla Inc. stock for the seventh straight day Tuesday, bringing him nearly halfway to his Twitter promise of selling 10% of his stake in the company.
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk exercised more of his options and sold more than 934,000 shares Tuesday, for roughly $973 million. That followed a $930 million stock sale Monday.
In total, Musk has sold about 8.16 million shares for $8.8 billion since Nov. 8, a day after Musk’s Twitter poll decided he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake. Some of the stock sales had been put into motion well before the poll was posted.
Assuming Musk intends to sell 10% of his shares, he’s nearly halfway there. Before the sales began, his 10% stake amounted to about 17 million shares — so after Tuesday’s sales, he would have about 8.84 million shares to go.
Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, has millions of stock options that he needs to exercise by August 2022, and Musk said in September that he intended on selling a large chunk of stock in the fourth quarter. CNBC reported last week that Musk faces about a $15 billion tax bill on those options.
Tesla shares
TSLA,
stopped their slide Tuesday, rising about 4%, after sinking more than 17% since Musk’s stock selloff began Nov. 8. The stock is up 50% year to date, and has gained 139% over the past 12 months.