Great explanation of Musk sales
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine?cmpid=BBD111121_MONEYSTUFF&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=211111&utm_campaign=moneystuff&sref=OzMbRRMQCopied below if interested if you cannot open paywall
Oh Elon
Well here you go sure sure sure:
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk unloaded $
5 billion of stock in the electric-car maker, shortly after restoking a social media debate over the tax treatment of billionaires’ shareholdings.
The world’s richest person so far has disposed of more than 4.
5 million shares this week, according to regulatory filings. Those were his first sales in more than five years.
Musk, who frequently stokes controversy on Twitter, created a firestorm over the weekend with a survey asking whether he should sell part of his Tesla stake. While he portrayed his proposal as having to do with debate over the ultra-wealthy avoiding taxes, the filings released Wednesday show some of the transactions were pre-arranged in mid-September -- weeks before the poll. He also didn’t mention in the tweets that he has millions of stock options that must be exercised before next August, when they expire.
There are two sets of sales. On Monday, he exercised 2.1
5 million stock options that were granted in 2012, paying about $13.4 million to acquire 2.1
5 million shares; then he sold 934,091 of those shares for about $1.1 billion. The Form 4 disclosures for the exercise and sales are here and here. Footnote 1 of each of Musk’s Form 4s says: “The transactions reported on this form 4 were automatically effected pursuant to a Rule 10b
5-1 trading plan previously adopted on September 14, 2021 and established by the reporting person for the purpose of an orderly sale of shares related to the exercises of options scheduled to expire in 2022.” Actually it says that in all caps. I like my readers so I rendered it in sentence case for readability, but now I’m going to say it again in all caps, for accuracy but also for emphasis: “THE TRANSACTIONS REPORTED ON THIS FORM 4 WERE AUTOMATICALLY EFFECTED PURSUANT TO A RULE 10B
5-1 TRADING PLAN PREVIOUSLY ADOPTED ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 AND ESTABLISHED BY THE REPORTING PERSON FOR THE PURPOSE OF AN ORDERLY SALE OF SHARES RELATED TO THE EXERCISES OF OPTIONS SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE IN 2022.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, he sold a total of about 3.6 million of the 170.
5 million shares that he already owned (i.e. not shares subject to options), for proceeds of about $3.9 billion. There are a bunch of Form 4s for these sales (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here).[1] They do not mention a prearranged 10b
5-1 plan; presumably he decided to sell them this week, and then did.
Some background. First, in September, a few weeks after he put this Rule 10b
5-1 plan in place, he said publicly at a conference that “a huge block of options will sell in Q4 — because I have to or they’ll expire.”[2] He has 22,862,0
50 options in the tranche set to expire next August; he exercised 2.1
5 million of them on Monday, leaving him with about 20.7 million options in that “huge block” that he plans to “sell in Q4.”
Second, this past Saturday, Musk tweeted a poll. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance,” he wrote, “so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” In a second tweet, he said “I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.” The poll closed on Sunday, with
57.9% of the votes in favor of Musk selling 10% of his stock.
It is not clear what “10% of my Tesla stock” means. At the time of the poll, Musk owned about 170.
5 million shares of Tesla stock. But he was also, for legal purposes, the “beneficial owner” of another 73.
5 million shares underlying options; Tesla’s filings show him owning 244 million shares. So if Musk were to sell 10% of his stock that would mean selling somewhere between 17 million and 24 million shares, give or take.