Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), has shed another 934,091 shares of the electric vehicle maker worth $1.01 billion this week. The operation took place to comply with Musk’s tax obligations related to the exercise of purchase options of 2.1 million shares.
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Tesla Sale
The head of Tesla has exercised purchase options for 10.7 million shares and has sold 10.1 million shares for $10.9 billion since November 8, as reported by CNBC.
In early November, Musk had tweeted that he would sell 10% of his shares if the platform users approved. Most of those who responded agreed with the sale, which is now taking place.
After the avalanche of option exercises, Musk still has a call option for about 10 million more shares at $ 6.24 each, which expires in August of next year.
MarketWatch reports that “Assuming Musk intends to sell 10% of his shares, he’s more than halfway there. Before the sales began, his 10% stake amounted to about 17 million shares —so after Thursday’s sales, he has about 6.9 million shares to go.”
Rival Stocks
On Thursday, Cathie Wood's financial management firm Ark Invest bought shares of US-listed Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng Inc (NYSE:XPEV) for the first time and sold more Tesla shares worth $87.5 million.
Ark Invest acquired 277,263 Xpeng shares with an estimated value of $13.39 million. The company is based in Guangzhou, China, and its stock closed 5.57% higher at $48.29 on Thursday –the stock is up 9.50% so far this year.
The move comes a day after the China-based electric car maker released its November deliveries, which surpassed those of local rivals Nio Inc (NYSE:NIO) and Li Auto Inc (NASDAQ:LI).
Wood's popular financial management firm Ark Invest views Tesla as its largest stake and it owns billion-dollar shares in the company through its publicly traded funds. Wood, who has always been betting on Tesla shares, has set a $ 3,000 price target by 2025.
Tesla is part of the Entrepreneur Index, which tracks 60 of the largest publicly traded companies managed by their founders or their founders’ families.
