Teslas Musk sells $ 930 million in shares to cover stock option tax filings

November 15 (Reuters) – Tesla’s (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk has sold $ 930 million in shares to meet tax deductions related to the exercise of stock options, US securities filings showed on Monday.

Musk sold 934,091 shares after exercising options to buy 2.1 million shares at $ 6.24 each on Monday. Tesla shares closed at $ 1,013.39. He is required to pay income tax on the difference between the exercise price and the fair market value of the shares.

This is the second time in a week that the billionaire exercises his share option. Last Monday, he sold another 934,000 shares for $ 1.1 billion after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares. read more

The two option-related sales were set up in September via a trading plan that allows business insiders to establish pre-planned transactions according to a schedule, the submissions state.

From the end of 2020, he had an option to buy 22.86 million shares, which expire in August next year, shows a Tesla submission.

On November 6, Musk asked Twitter users to sell 10% of their stake, pushing down Tesla’s share price after a majority on Twitter said they agreed to the sale. It was not clear how or if the trading plan was linked to Musk’s Twitter investigation.

Reporting of Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco and Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing Himani Sarkar

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