Elon Musk sells $1 billion worth of Tesla shares

Elon Musk has divested 934,000 shares of his Tesla car company for $1.01 billion, a disclosure from the U.S. securities regulator said Friday.

Mr. Musk sold the coins to cover taxes on the exercise of 2.1 million stock options. These options give him the right to buy shares at a certain price. Musk must pay taxes on the difference between the exercise price of the options and the market price of the shares.

To date, Elon Musk has sold a total of 10.1 million Tesla shares and raised about $10.9 billion since he held a Twitter poll on Nov. 6 to see if he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla.

To reach the 10% threshold, Mr. Musk must sell a total of about 17 million shares. And if his exercisable options are included in his overall stake in Tesla, he will have to sell even more shares.