Elon Musk Sells Around $5 Billion in Tesla Stock

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: The Wall Street Journal.

BUSINESS

Elon Musk Sells Around $5 Billion in Tesla Stock

Three-days of share disposals come as the billionaire chief executive exercises a large number of stock options

By Rebecca Elliott, Richard Rubin and Theo Francis
https://twitter.com/rfelliott
[e-mail]
https://twitter.com/RichardRubinDC
[e-mail]
https://twitter.com/theofrancis
[e-mail]
Updated Nov. 10, 2021 11:44 pm ET

Elon Musk sold about $5 billion in Tesla Inc. shares this week as he exercised stock options that he received as part of his compensation package, according to regulatory filings made public late Wednesday.

The Tesla chief executive first exercised just over 2 million stock options Monday that were valued at roughly $2.5 billion at the day’s close, paying around $13.4 million in exercise costs.

He sold many of those shares the same day to cover tax withholding obligations, according to the filings.

After selling less than 1% of his holdings Monday, he sold about 2% over the subsequent two days, the regulatory notices show. He sold around 4.5 million shares in total over the three days, shrinking the size of his stockholdings in Tesla even after exercising the options.

Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-sells-1-1-billion-in-tesla-stock-11636589559

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It's pushing the limits on time. This happened yesterday.

Hat tip for making me think I should post this here, Joe.My.God.

https://www.joemygod.com/2021/11/elon-musk-sells-5b-in-tesla-stock-after-twitter-poll/

[irisblue]

1. .

Fuck that guy

[jimfields33]

2. Always nice to have a few bucks in the bank

Not sure why this matters. I know investers buy and sell everyday. Good for him to check his portfolio and make changes. We all need to do this at least annually.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Elon Musk's Brother Is Making Some Very Curiously Timed Tesla Trades

Elon Musk's Brother Is Making Some Very Curiously Timed Tesla Trades

Kimbal Musk's biggest trading day ever came right before the famous Twitter survey

By Steve DaSilva
Yesterday 5:44PM

Last Friday, shares of Tesla were trading just barely under the all-time high they’d reached the day before. Three days later, following Elon Musk’s infamous “should I sell shares to pay my taxes” Twitter poll, the stock had its biggest two-day nosedive in over a year. Wouldn’t it have been nice, as a shareholder, to sell off part of your investment on that Friday?

Kimbal Musk, Elon’s hat-enthusiast brother, certainly seemed to think so. According to an SEC filing, he sold 88,500 shares of Tesla on Friday, November 5th. Those shares, sold for between $1,223.06 and $1,236.89 each, netted Musk just under $109 million.

{snip}

[packman]

4. O.K. - BUT is he going to pay any tax$ on this????

My guess is "No"- but could someone clarify?

[Champp]

5. "That would be so unfair." - Republican Billionaires Klub, Inc.

[oldsoftie]

12. Doubt Bezos or Musk are republicans

There are plenty of Democrat billionaires too.

[Calista241]

6. Selling options is treated as income, so yes, he'll have to pay taxes on this.

Getting loans with the options as collateral is the way mega rich people avoid taxes.

He'll pay the federal tax rate, and whatever state income tax he lives in. So the Federal gov't will get approx 40% of whatever he sells in taxes.

[packman]

7. Thanks for explaining

Makes me feel somewhat better

[OnlinePoker]

8. That's one of the reasons he is selling them.

The bulk of his stock options expire in August. In order to exercise them, he will owe somewhere around $20 billion in taxes. In order not to tank the stock, he'll do these sales over the next 9 months until the options are exercised. He's funded his living expenses from loans tied to the value of the options so he doesn't want to damage the stock price too severely. Also, when people see the boss selling, they start to panic, so he's been up front as to why he's doing it.

[IronLionZion]

11. AP estimates he'll pay $1.1 billion in taxes on this

https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-elon-musk-ed57f9319cb5aaa795d15fc74a0b1add

Dude doesn't get a salary or bonuses in cash, only stock. So selling it is the only way he can pay taxes.

[FakeNoose]

9. So people are buying Musk's stock now, even though the price will be lower next month?

Hmmmm....

[irisblue]

10. He has lots of fanboys.

I made a comment that he should pay his taxes on Reddit & I got swarmed by at least 10 fanboys reminding me how important he is to society...

[2naSalit]

13. So?

Like it's a big loss for him.

Fuck that guy and his space junk.

[EX500rider]

14. "Fuck that guy and his space junk."

You mean the way Astronauts and cargo get to the Space Station now on his "junk"?

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first vertical take-off and vertical propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and to the International Space Station (SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 in 2020). SpaceX has flown and reflown the Falcon 9 series of rockets over one hundred times.

SpaceX is developing a satellite megaconstellation named Starlink to provide commercial internet service. In January 2020 the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation ever launched. SpaceX is also developing Starship, a privately funded, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary spaceflight. Starship is intended to become the primary SpaceX orbital vehicle once operational, supplanting the existing Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon fleet. Starship is planned to be fully reusable and will have the highest payload capacity of any orbital rocket ever on its debut, scheduled for the early 2020s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

[ColinC]

18. No. I'm pretty sure they mean "fuck that guy."

Which I second.

I don't deny he has made some considerable contributions to the advancement of a more environmentally friendly economy and space travel and research, etc.

But that doesn't make him any less of an asshole. So yeah. Fuck that guy.

[sarcasmo]

15. Lord loves government money, needed to pay a tax debt.

[speak easy]

16. THIS is the ANSWER to those who say we can't afford a WEALTH TAX

because it would hurt business.

[ColinC]

17. Didn't he say he would sell ten percent?

But hey, something's something. That's a billion dollars in taxes....