Tesla’s market cap falls back under $1 trillion after Elon Musk sells another $900M of his shares – bringing total selloff to $12.7 billion over five weeks
- Tesla shares slipped again Tuesday as company’s market cap fell below $1 trillion
- Elon Musk sold another $906 million in shares to cover taxes on stock options
- Since November 8 he has sold $12.7 billion worth of his shares in the company
- Musk is now more than halfway to his pledged sale of 10% of his Tesla stake
Tesla’s market valuation has dipped below $1 trillion after CEO Elon Musk sold another $906 million worth of shares in the company.
Shares of Tesla dropped more than 3 percent on Tuesday after regulatory filings showed that Musk offloaded another 934,091 shares to cover taxes on the exercise of nearly $2 billion worth of stock options.
Monday’s trade was part of a pre-arranged trading plan set in place on September 14, but comes amid a broader sale of shares after Musk pledged to sell off 10 percent of his stake after conducting a Twitter poll.
The richest man in the world is now more than halfway to selling off 10 percent of his holdings, and has sold a total of $12.7 billion worth of stock since last month.
Tesla’s market valuation has dipped below $1 trillion after CEO Elon Musk sold another $906 million worth of shares in the company
Tesla shares have fallen more than 23 percent from their peak in early November, and were trading at around $938 on Tuesday afternoon
Musk, who is also the founder and CEO space exploration company SpaceX, recently passed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the world’s wealthiest person as the rising price of Tesla pushed his net worth to around $300 billion.
But Tesla shares have fallen more than 23 percent from their peak of around $1,222 in early November, and were trading at around $938 on Tuesday afternoon.
At that level, Tesla’s market capitalization was around $943 billion after surpassing $1 trillion earlier this year.
On November 6, Musk posted a Twitter poll asking whether he should sell 10 percent of his stake in the company, which would be worth about $20 billion, and vowed to abide by the results in favor of the sale.
Musk faces an August deadline to exercise options on 23 million shares which were granted in 2012. August is also the deadline to pay taxes associated with the grant.
Yet many of his stock sales over the past month do not appear to be connected with his tax withholding requirements.
Elon Musk and son X AE A-12 on stage TIME Person of the Year on Monday in New York City
Time magazine on Monday named Musk its Person of the Year, calling him a ‘clown, genius, edgelord, visionary, industrialist, showman.’
Time cited the breadth of Musk’s endeavors, from his founding of SpaceX in 2002, to his hand in the creation of the alternative energy company SolarCity in addition to Tesla, the most valuable car company in the world.
The magazine emphasizes that its annual acknowledgement is not an award, but rather, ‘recognition of the person who had the most influence on the events of the year, for good or for ill.’
The magazine also noted the sway Musk holds over an army of loyal followers (and investors) on social media, where he skewers the powerful and also regulators attempting to keep in check an executive that is far from traditional.
Before his 66 million followers on Twitter, he offers outlandish assistance to the world and drives even his own followers and investors mad by roiling markets.
Though it only became profitable in recent years, Tesla is far and away the world’s most valuable car company, at one point this year crossing the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold.
Detroit heavyweights Ford and General Motors are worth less than $200 billion combined.
Tesla is far and away the world’s most valuable car company, at one point this year crossing the $1 trillion market capitalization threshold
Musk said on Tuesday the electric carmaker will accept dogecoin as payment for merchandise on a test basis, sending the meme-based cryptocurrency up over 20 percent before it reversed some if its gains.
‘Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes,’ Musk said in a tweet.
Musk did not specify what merchandise, whose prices start from $50 and go as high as $1,900, could be bought with dogecoin.
Tesla sells apparel, ‘Giga Texas’ belt buckles and mini models of its vehicles as well as quirky limited-edition items such as the ‘Cyberwhistle’, which is modeled after its much-awaited Cybertruck.
It recently launched a quad bike ‘Cyberquad’ for kids, also modeled after the truck.
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