Tesla Stock Falls After Musk Promises to Sell 10% of Stake
Tesla Inc. shares fell after Chief Executive Elon Musk signaled he was open to selling 10% of his holdings.
Shares in the electric-vehicle maker lost 4.8% Monday after Mr. Musk, the company’s largest stockholder, launched a weekend poll of his 63 million followers on Twitter, asking them if he should sell the stake, worth around $21 billion at Friday’s market close, to pay taxes. About 58% of the 3.5 million participants voted in favor of the sale and Mr. Musk tweeted that he had been “prepared to accept either outcome.”
Monday’s slip took a sliver off a rally that has carried Tesla shares up 65% this year, propelling the company into a small group with market values topping $1 trillion and making Mr. Musk the world’s richest person. Investors often sell shares when insiders do because company executives are generally assumed to have greater awareness of the business’s direction and prospects.
Tesla’s shares remain notoriously volatile. They have a relatively small so-called free float, or the amount of shares regularly traded and not held by insiders. Tesla’s shares have fallen more than 5% nine times this year, according to FactSet. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment on the stock decline, Mr. Musk’s tweets and if anyone had vetted them. Mr. Musk is required under a 2019 court judgment to get internal preapproval before making statements about certain subjects that could affect Tesla’s share price.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/other/tesla-stock-falls-after-musk-promises-to-sell-10percent-of-stake/ar-AAQrAg2
C'est la vie.