Elon Musk sells $1.02 billion worth of Tesla Inc. shares, as Tesla enters 2022 in a strong position. Details here
Premium- Elon Musk sold $1.02 billion of Tesla Inc. shares, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk sold $1.02 billion of Tesla Inc. shares, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, even as shares in the electric-vehicle maker have almost 30% upside over the next 12 months.
The Tesla chief executive officer sold 934,090 shares, the filing showed.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has been offloading Tesla stock since asking his Twitter followers in November whether he should sell some of his stake.
As Tesla Inc. is in a strong position heading into 2022, with catalysts including robust Chinese demand and new factory openings in the U.S. and Germany, according to Wedbush.
Shares in the electric-vehicle maker have almost 30% upside over the next 12 months, analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note. He expects component shortages to ease next year, allowing Tesla to better meet growing demand in China, while new factories in Austin, Texas and Berlin should alleviate global production bottlenecks.
“The linchpin to the overall bull thesis on Tesla remains China, which we estimate will represent 40% of deliveries for the EV maker in 2022," Ives said, reiterating his outperform rating and $1,400 price target.
Tesla shares have had a stellar year, with a 55% gain that propelled the company’s market value above $1 trillion. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has been offloading stock since November, and said on Twitter last week that he is “almost done" with his target of reducing his stake by 10%.
Wedbush’s Ives estimates that by the end of 2022 Tesla will have capacity to produce about 2 million cars annually from around 1 million today. “Right now Tesla has a high-class problem of demand outstripping supply," he said.
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Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who has sold more than $15 billion worth of shares in the company since early November, said last week that he was "almost done" with his stock sales.
The billionaire had made confusing statements as to whether he might or might not be done with his stated goal of selling 10% of his Tesla shares.
"I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option exercise stuff and I tried to be extremely literal here," he said in an interview on Tuesday with conservative satirical website Babylon Bee.
But on Wednesday he suggested he might not be done. "This assumes completion of the 10b sale," he tweeted, referring to his prearranged sales plan related to his options.
"There are still a few tranches left, but almost done," he tweeted later.
Under the Rule 10b5-1 trading plan set up in September, he has exercised stock options that expire next year and sold a portion of the stocks to pay taxes, according to Tesla filings.
Following a flurry of sales, Musk still has about 1.5 million stock options that expire in August next year.
Tesla shares extended gains, rising more than 5% on Thursday after ending 7.5% higher the previous session.
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