By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) topped $1,000 Wednesday, surging 7.5% after CEO Elon Musk’s statement that he had sold enough removed a key overhang for the shares that have struggled for a month and a half.
The maverick CEO sold Tesla shares in several tranches since his November 7 Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) poll asking whether he should sell 10% of his holding. Following that, between November 8 and December 21, the stock lost more than a quarter of its value. It touched a high of $1,015.66 earlier during the session that's underway.
The billionaire sold 583,611 shares Tuesday, bringing his total sale to 13.5 million -- about 80% of what he planned to sell, Reuters said.
While Musk made his Twitter poll look like he would be directed by popular opinion – which eventually favored him selling the stake – he needed money to pay a large tax bill on his newly acquired Tesla stock.
"I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option exercise stuff and I tried to be extremely literal here," he said in an interview with Babylon Bee.
Musk told the conservative satirical website that he needed to exercise stock options that are expiring next year "no matter what." He added he sold additional "incremental stock" to get near 10%.
Musk still has more than 3 million options expiring in August 2022, which could require him to sell off more shares as he exercises them.
Musk, who remains the largest shareholder in Tesla even after the sales, tweeted Sunday he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year.