The stock’s gains followed Musk’s pronouncement that he is done selling shares
Tesla Inc. is once again worth $1 trillion, after Chief Executive Elon Musk said he is about done selling shares.
Tesla shares soared 7.5% to $1,008.87 on Wednesday, pushing share prices higher than $1,000 and the electric-car company’s market capitalization past $1 trillion. After first topping that figure in October, Tesla below that level on Dec. 13, part of a slide that put the volatile stock into a ‘bear market’ for the third time this year. The shares will remain in a bear market until they move 20% higher than their most recent low, which would mean a share price of $1,079.93, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The stock’s gains followed Musk’s pronouncement in a Tuesday interview that he is done selling shares.
Musk had promised to sell 10% of his stake, which at the time stood at around 17 million shares; filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that Musk has sold nearly 13.5 million shares for around $14 billion.
I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option-exercise stuff, and I tried to be extremely literal here, Musk said in an interview with the satirical website The Babylon Bee.
Musk later tweeted that he’s ‘almost done’ with his stock sales, and SEC filings disclosed another nearly billion-dollar sale late Wednesday.
There could be more SEC filings detailing more share sales that have not been publicly posted yet. Musk has also been exercising options as he sells shares, which could actually leave him with more shares than he had when he pledged to sell the shares after asking his followers on Twitter Inc. about the possibility — the latest filing as of Wednesday’s market close in the U.S. showed Musk held 174.7 million Tesla shares.