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Elon Musk sells $5 billion of Tesla shares mostly to cover taxes, shortly after Twitter poll

Close to 58% of the 3.5 million votes were cast supporting a sale in the poll over the weekend.

TESLA CHIEF EXECUTIVE Elon Musk has sold around 900,000 shares in his company for $1.1 billion (€958 million) yesterday shortly after holding a Twitter poll, asking whether he should sell 10% of his stake in the company.

Overall— through sales on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday — Musk has sold about $5 billion (€4.7 billion) worth of stock this week or 4.5 million shares in total.

Close to 58% of the 3.5 million votes were cast supporting a sale in the poll over the weekend. Musk said at that time that he would abide by the poll.

It’s not clear, however, if the poll had any influence on Musk’s decision.

The billionaire has used the proceeds of Monday’s sale partly to pay off tax obligations due on stock options that he exercised that day.

Tuesday and Wednesday’s sales were signalled to the market in two regulatory filings.

In the filings, Musk said he had sold about a million of the shares “solely” to cover taxes on 2.1 million shares he picked up at $6.24 in 2012.

Later on Wednesday, he disclosed the sale of an additional 3.6 million shares. 

However, the documents do not detail whether Musk will continue selling until the 10% target, a stake in the company valued at $20 billion (€17.4 billion).

After the transactions, Musk still owns about 170 million Tesla shares.

Last weekend’s poll caused a sell-off of the stock on Monday and Tuesday, but it recovered somewhat on Wednesday.

The company has recently been valued at one trillion dollars, a valuation that has been questioned by many market analysts.

Federal authorities in the United States are currently investigating 12 serious incidents involving Tesla’s self-driving ‘Autopilot’ software in which at least 17 people were hurt and one was killed.

 

— Additional reporting by PA 

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    Mute Thomas Hannigan
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    Jul 25th 2013, 7:20 AM

    Councillors and ex TDs walk from corruption charges,and not one column reporting this..The silence is deafening,, ,,,,,,

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    Mute Dermot Lane
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    Jul 25th 2013, 8:10 AM

    True Thomas.

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    Mute the lost lenore
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    Jul 25th 2013, 9:25 AM

    Incroyable! The Journal runs an opinion piece that’s not about sexism. Give yourselves a pat on the back, that must have been difficult.

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Jul 25th 2013, 11:28 AM

    Typical male attitude.!

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    Mute the lost lenore
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    Jul 25th 2013, 11:31 AM

    I demand a quota system to redress the gender imbalance of this thread.

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    Mute Emily Elephant
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    Jul 25th 2013, 7:55 AM

    It’s nuts to think that you can entrust decisions about people’s liberty to 12 unqualified people, and at the same time not trust those 12 unqualified people to look at the evidence presented in court rather than media hysteria.

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    Mute Enola Straight
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    Jul 25th 2013, 8:08 AM

    Unqualified? Do elaborate.

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    Mute ieoinu
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    Jul 25th 2013, 7:19 PM

    I disagree, the jury system is not without its faults but it is the fairest system there is. The principle of interpretation of our laws is based in that of the reasonable man and that when tried you are judged by your peers. If you have qualified people on a jury (by qualified people trained to do the task, familiar with laws, procedures etc basically quasi judges) you remove this element of the reasonable or normal person. The example I would give would be Padraig Nally, he did everything needed that a professional jury would have been quite right to convict him of at least manslaughter. However a jury of his peers (seeing things they their own eyes and drawing from their own experiences) acquitted him albeit on a retrial.

    Now a professional jury drawing a wage and living in middle Ireland may not be able to draw on such experience or perspective and arrive at the same conclusion. My experiences come from the prosecution end of things and seeing cases fall because of a jury’s verdict is aggravating and frustrating but it has to be respected, it is what protects all of us from all of us.

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    Mute George Barwood
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    Jul 26th 2013, 1:19 AM

    I’m in some kind of battle with the UK Press Complaints Commission, re Daily Mail comment policy on a recent high profile US case.

    http://jodi-arias.wikispaces.com/Daily+Mail+complaint

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    Mute Paul Roche
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    Jul 25th 2013, 8:58 AM

    Fergal,
    Proposed legislation for “Family Law” and “whistleblower protection” will create new offences where information disclosed relating to decisions made in unaccountable courts.
    Judicial accountability is key for those who would decide on what is in the public interest.

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    Mute itiswhatitisMF
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    Jul 25th 2013, 8:37 AM

    Bankers and the elite and politicians have one law the rest have another. 2 tier system.

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