Following his questionable Twitter poll, Elon Musk has now sold 934,000 shares/$1.1 Billion USD of Tesla (NASDAQGS:TSLA -0.42%) Stock to satisfy taxes from options. Last week, the CEO of the electric car manufacturer launched a poll on Twitter, proposing the sale of 10% of his Tesla stock. Receiving 58% of the 3.5 million votes in favor of a sale, Musk exercised 2.15 million options at a price of $6.24 per contract.
Word of the poll made headlines plummeted Tesla’s stock and effectively dropping $50 billion USD from Elon Musk’s net worth. It is interesting to note that the contracts sold were from a stock option award Musk received in 2012 and were set to expire August 2022.
An official filing with the SEC notes the sales were to “solely to satisfy the reporting person’s tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options.” Additionally, the transactions were from a pre-arranged trading plan adopted in mid-September.
