Shares of Tesla fell sharply for the second day in a row, dropping 12 percent on Tuesday in an ongoing jolt after the company’s founder, Elon Musk, suggested on Twitter that he would sell 10 percent of his stake in Tesla.
Tuesday’s losses plunge the stock more than 16 percent this week and nearly erase the string of gains Tesla has seen in the two weeks after market cap. Over $1 trillion for the first time. Since Friday’s close, Tesla has lost nearly $200 billion in market valuation, although it remains slightly above the $1 trillion threshold as of Tuesday’s close.
On Saturday, Mr. Musk sent In a poll on Twitter asking if he would sell some of his Tesla shares, he said he would “fit with the results of this survey, whichever it is.” About 58 percent of those polled voted for him to sell their shares.
Mr. Musk owns 17 percent of Tesla’s stock, which is worth nearly $200 billion at the time of tweeting the survey. The weekend tweets were a promise to sell nearly $20 billion worth of stock.
Stephen Gandel reported that regardless of the Twitter poll, Mr. Musk may soon need to sell a large portion of his shares. The New York Times’ DealBook. This is because Mr. Musk has approximately 23 million stock options that expire in August 2022.
Most stock grants allow managers to avoid paying taxes for years, and perhaps forever, as long as they don’t sell the shares they made from converting the option. But the nature of Mr. Musk’s options means they may not be fully eligible for preferential tax treatment and may be owed more than $10 billion in taxes.
Separately, on Monday, Mr. Musk’s brother, Kimbal Musk, described editor filing He said on Friday he had sold about $109 million worth of shares in Tesla.
Here’s what else is happening in the markets:
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The S&P 500 fell 0.4%, its first daily drop after eight days of gains.
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Oil prices rose and West Texas Intermediate crude rose 2.7 percent to $84.15 a barrel.
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Yields on government bonds were lower, while yields on 10-year Treasuries fell five basis points to 1.46 percent.
