Elon Musk sells more Tesla shares after Twitter poll

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk disclosed a sale of additional 639,737 shares of the electric-car maker, regulatory filings showed on Friday, after offloading about $5 billion worth of stock following a poll of his followers on Twitter.

Musk sold 587,638 shares held by his trust on Nov. 11 in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $1,056.03 to $1,087.88, according to one of the filings.

A second filing showed that Musk sold an additional 52,099 shares held by his trust at prices ranging from 1,088.01 to $1,104.15.

Musk, the world's richest person and Tesla's top shareholder, tweeted last weekend that he would sell 10% of his stock if users of the social media platform approved the move. Days after Musk disposed $5 billion of the stock, or 3% of his total holdings, the first such move since 2016. read more

In the first round of share sale, filings showed Musk's trust sold nearly 3.6 million shares in Tesla, worth around $4 billion, while he also sold another 934,000 shares for $1.1 billion to cover tax obligations after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares.

Prior to the sales, Musk owned about 23% stake in Tesla, including stock options.

Musk had previously said that he would have to exercise a large number of stock options in the next three months, which would create a big tax bill. Selling some of his stock could free up funds to pay the taxes.

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