Elon Musk makes good on Tesla 10% stake cut pledge

Elon Musk has sold more than three-quarters of the Tesla shares he would need to offload to make good on a pledge to cut 10 per cent of his stake in the company.

In the second round of disposals this week, Mr Musk got rid of 934,091 shares for more than $884 million (€783 million), according to regulatory filings dated Thursday. The sales were to pay for taxes on the exercise of 2.2 million options.

The Tesla founder has been on a selling spree since he asked his Twitter followers in early November whether he should offload 10 per cent of his Tesla stake, to which the majority answered “yes”. At the same time, he has been exercising options, something he had said he was likely to do toward the end of the year.

He has now sold 12.9 million shares for $13.6 billion, while exercising 17 million of the derivatives. The 10 per cent threshold would represent about 17 million shares without taking into account the exercisable options.