Elon Musk sells Tesla’s 22 million shares worth $3.6 billion

Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sold 22 million shares worth $3.6 billion on Wednesday, as the total valuation of the shares sold by him this year touched $40 billion and the shares of the company touched a two-year low.

According to a US securities filing, 22 million shares were unloaded by Musk in the most valuable car-making company in the world in a span of three days between Monday to Wednesday.

This is the second time since stock in huge number have been sold by Musk after he made the Twitter purchase worth $44 billion in October.   

Although, it’s unclear if the sale of shares is related to the acquisition of Twitter, however, the investors are annoyed by the perception that Musk’s focus as well as resources are getting diverted from Tesla to Twitter.

Brokerage IG Markets’ analyst Tony Sycamore said, “It doesn’t put a lot of confidence in the business, or speak volumes for where his attention is at.”

“It’s not a good situation. I’ve spoken to a lot of investors who have Tesla shares and they’re absolutely furious at Elon,” he added.

This year, the stock price of Tesla has decreased by 50%, as it has continuously underperformed at both broader tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) and automakers (.SPLRCAUTM).

Maybank Securities’ head of prime brokerage Tareck Horchani said, “It will start to be tiring for investors.”

The fortune of Musk, which is mostly related to Tesla shares, has seen a significant decrease in prices this year and has resulted in him losing the tag of the richest person in the world last week to Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault, as per Forbes.

A month before, shares worth $4 billion were sold by Musk days after the Twitter deal was closed. Musk’s supporter and Tesla investor Ross Gerber tweeted that an announcement of buyback should be made by Tesla “to take advantage to (sic) the low share price Elon has created”. 

(With inputs from agencies)