Elon Musk Sells USD 150 + M In Tesla Stock Options, Stocks, SEC Documents Show.
Tesla, Inc. founder and CEO Elon Musk sold an additional $ 150 million of his stock options in the company on Monday, SEC documents showed.
The sale came just one day after Musk argued with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) About the centibillionaire and others like him paying their fair share of taxes.
Musk, the richest person in the world, worth $ 266.9 billion, responded to a Sanders tweet on Sunday mocking the senator’s age of 80 and telling him that “[keeps] forgetting that you’re still alive. ”
“You want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word,” Musk added later.
Despite the seemingly sarcastic tweet, Musk appeared to be a man of his word, filing documentation on Monday to sell 2.1 million options on Tesla shares and more than 148,000 Tesla shares, for a total value of just over 150 million dollars.
This was not the only transaction from the mogul, as OkeyNews reported that Musk sold more than $ 930 million in Tesla stock last week to meet withholding tax obligations.
In total, the mogul sold more than $ 6.9 billion in shares of the rising company. In September, the electric car corporation became the sixth American brand valued at more than $ 1 trillion.
Musk has come under fire for appearing to mock those who advise him to sell additional Tesla stock or pay more taxes and send sarcastic posts on social media about his immense wealth.
He even surveyed his 63.8 million Twitter followers regarding a sale and asked if he should sell 10 percent of his stake in the company.
More than 3.5 million people responded to the survey, and nearly 60 percent of those surveyed agreed that Musk should sell the stake.
This latest series of events is not the first time Musk and Sanders have faced off.
Sanders considered one of the most progressive senators in Congress, has targeted Musk and the extremely wealthy for their refusal to pay more taxes.
“We are at a time in American history where two guys … own more wealth than the bottom 40% of the population of this country. That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable,” he tweeted. Sanders previously.
Sanders has also targeted another of Musk’s self-funded companies, SpaceX, which recently launched the first fully civilian space flight. The senator has argued that great wealth should not be spent on space tourism when there is still significant inequality on Earth.
Musk responded that he was “accumulating resources to help make life multi-planetary and extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Even after selling most of the company he’s sold, South African-born Musk is still the world’s richest person, and he holds that title by a significant margin.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, is worth $ 204.2 billion. Rounding out the top three is Bernard Arnault, president of the $ 199 billion luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.