Tesla Motors Inc Director Rakes In $4.2M In Share Sales

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Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) insiders aren’t known for selling their stock very often, but director Antonio Gracias has begun to unload some of his shares in the automaker. Last week, Gracias sold 20,000 shares, and this week, he sold an additional 20,000 shares of Tesla.

Tesla director sells shares this week

According to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Gracias sold his shares on Tuesday and Wednesday for an average price of $210.49, turning his paper profits into more than $4.2 million. The regulatory filing shows that all of the shares he sold were indirectly owned by him through a couple of different entities. He sold the 20,000 shares in 23 separate transactions, five of which were on Tuesday and the rest on Wednesday. After the sales of all those shares, Gracias had 46,633 more shares of Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) remaining.

A handful of insiders at Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) have sold some shares over the last month or so, but those sales don’t appear to be having an effect on the stock price.

Short interest in Tesla falls

In only about a month, short in Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) has slumped meaningfully as sentiment started to shift back toward the positive. NASDAQ data shows that as of May 15, more than 25.2 million shares were sold short. That’s a 6% decline from the previous interest at the end of April, which was recorded as more than 26.7 million shares.

However, there is still significant short interest in Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), as more than 29% of its shares are sold short. The number of days to cover is also rather high, at more than three days.

Morgan Stanley still loves Tesla

In spite of the high short interest, several analysts still like Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA). While many have focused on the company’s technology and whether it can increase or speed up adoption of electric vehicles, analyst Adam Jonas thinks it’s more about how fun the Model S is to drive. He thinks that it just happens to be an electric car and that Tesla’s fate isn’t tied to the EV market.

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