Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased shares worth $930 Million to satisfy tax withholding requirements related to stock option exercise, U.S. securities filings revealed on Monday.

Musk purchased options to purchase $2.1 billion of stock shares on Monday and sold 934 091 shares. According to filings the transaction was done to satisfy Musk’s tax withholding obligation related to exercising stock options.

Musk sold $7.8 Billion worth of Tesla stock in the last six trading days. Not all sales have been subject to tax withholding requirements. 

Musk asked his followers on November 6 whether they wanted to sell 10% of their stake. This would have been worth around $20 billion. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold $930 million in shares to meet tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options, bringing his recent sales of stock to $7.8 billion

Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold 930 million shares in order to satisfy tax withholding requirements related to exercise of stock options. This brings his stock sales to $7.8 Billion.

Tesla shares closed at $1,013.39 Monday, an unchanged level from Friday's close

Tesla shares were unchanged at $1.013.39 on Monday. This is the same level as Friday’s close.

Tesla shares ended at $1,013.39 on Friday, a level that was unchanged from Friday. 

Stock options, a type of compensation, allow employees to purchase shares at a set price (known as the strike value). This makes them more attractive as shares prices rise.

Musk bought 2.1 million shares Monday at $6.24 per unit. The difference between strike price and fair-market value is subject to tax as ordinary income. 

Musk has until August to exercise his options for 23 million shares that were issued in 2012, which was granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. August is the deadline for taxes to be paid in connection with this grant.

However, his stock sales throughout the week appear not to be related with tax withholding requirements. 

He has now exercised his stock options for the second week in a row. After exercising his options to purchase nearly 2.2million shares, he was able to sell another 934 000 shares worth $1.1 Billion.

Two options-related sales were established in September through a trading program that permits corporate insiders set preplanned transactions on a specific schedule.

He had the option of buying 22.86million shares at the close of 2020. These will expire next August, according to a Tesla filing.

Musk polled Twitter users on November 6 about selling 10 per cent of his stake. The sale pushed down Tesla’s share price, after the majority agreed to it. 

Musk (50) wrote, “Much has been made recently of unrealized profits being a way of tax avoidance,” in the November 6 posting. 

The exec asked 63.1million of his followers to “Do you support that?”

This was true with over 2,000,000 of the 3 million users who surveyed on social media voting that he should. The result spurred the CEO to make a huge sale. 

The trading plan was unclear whether or not it related to Musk’s tweet poll. 

Musk faces an August deadline to exercise options on 23 million shares which were granted in 2012. August is also the deadline to pay taxes associated with the grant

Musk has until August to exercise his options for 23 million shares that were issued in 2012, which was granted by Musk. August also marks the due date for paying taxes related to the grant

JPMorgan Chase filed a lawsuit against Tesla on Monday for $162.2million. The suit was brought by Tesla after the share price rose following Musk’s famous tweet about ‘funding secured.

According to a Manhattan federal court complaint, Tesla purchased warrants from JPMorgan in 2014. These warrants would have been paid off if the strike price was lower than Tesla’s share price at the time the warrants expired in June or July 2021.

JPMorgan said that it had the authority to lower the strike prices after Musk’s tweet on August 7, 2018 that he may take Tesla private at $420 per shares and claimed that it had ‘funding secured’. Musk decided not to revert some of this reduction 17 days later.

Tesla’s share prices rose 10 fold by the expiration of warrants. JPMorgan required Tesla to either deliver cash or shares of stock under the terms in its contract. According to JPMorgan, Tesla’s inability to comply with the terms of its contract was a breach of that obligation.

“Though JPMorgan made the correct and legally required adjustments,” the complaint stated, “Tesla flagrantly violated its contractual obligation to fully pay JPMorgan.”

Musk trolled Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) by saying he keeps ‘forgetting you’re still alive’, after the politician demanded the uber-rich ‘pay their fair share’ of taxes. 

Democratic-socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Twitter that the nation's wealthiest people must pay their fair share of taxes

Democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that all Americans should pay their fair share in taxes

Sanders' tweet prompted Musk to offer to sell more stock after he cashed out more than $5billion in holdings last week in response to an unrelated Twitter poll

Musk responded to a Twitter poll by Sanders tweeting that he was willing to buy more stock after cashing out $5billion worth of holdings.

Sanders, 80, called on the nation’s ‘extremely wealthy’ to pony up more cash in a tweet Saturday, drawing the attention of Musk.

After launching the Twitter poll that guided him toward selling the $25billion in stock to fund President Joe Biden’s proposed billionaire tax.

Musk, responding to Sanders’ demands, indicated he wouldn’t draw the line there.

‘I keep forgetting that you’re still alive,’ Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeted at the senator.

‘Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word …’