It appears that Elon Musk has pulled a classic pump and dump on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) investors, just hours after holding the firm’s annual shareholder meeting last Thursday. It appears that contrary to Musk’s famous statement, his money will not be “the first in.. last out.”
Forgot to say one thing at Tesla annual shareholders meeting: just as my money was the first in, it will be the last out.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2013
At the shareholder meeting, as reported by TheStreet.com, Musk highlighted that the company was “about to embark on an experiment to seize an untapped opportunity.” Including in his hype-speech was commentary on the delayed Cybertruck, expansions to the current supercharger network, and even a novel restaurant drive-in theatre supercharging location in LA.
The next day, he embarked on divesting his stake in the company, selling $2.9 billion in shares on Friday, not even a day after hyping the company. As per Form 4 filings made this evening, the sales didn’t stop there, with a further $1.4 billion sold on Monday, and $2.6 billion sold today, on Tuesday.
All told, Musk unloaded a total of 7.9 million shares for gross proceeds of $6.89 billion in the three trading sessions following the annual shareholder meeting.
The selling has been met with a flurry of tweets from both long and short shareholders, as well as general market commentariats. A key highlight, aside from the aforementioned tweet from 2013 by Musk, is Elon’s comment in April that no further sales of his Tesla stock were planned.
How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/QyUz6HR7ZW
— Mike Levine (@mrlevine) August 10, 2022
"Which is why I'm dumping stock one trading day ago, today and tomorrow."$TSLA https://t.co/vDB2B7zBNf
— Stanphyl Capital (@StanphylCap) August 10, 2022
"This is a buying opportunity (evil laugh)"
— TR (@Tweet_Removed) August 10, 2022
[Dumps billions in $TSLA stock starting the next day]
Nice work, Pony Stark! Keep the believers believing. pic.twitter.com/dsA5B4Eb1l
The sales follow the executive of Tesla selling 9.6 million shares in a single week in April, at the time generating gross proceeds of $8.5 billion.
Tesla last traded at $850.00 on the Nasdaq.
Information for this briefing was found via Edgar and the sources mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.