As Tesla stock has fallen in recent weeks, members of the board and an executive at Elon Musk's company have sold off millions of dollars in stock, according to filings.

Summary

Tesla board members and executives have sold over $100 million in stock since early February as the company’s shares decline.

Board member James Murdoch sold $13 million in stock on March 10, coinciding with Tesla’s worst single-day drop in five years.

Kimbal Musk sold $27 million in shares last month, and board chair Robyn Denholm offloaded over $75 million through a predetermined plan.

The sell-offs come as Tesla’s stock has fallen nearly 50% since December.

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
    127·
    20 hours ago

    The wise ones sold as much stock as possible.
    Tesla stock is most likely to drop way more. Global sales being down about 50% for February, demands the stock must fall even more.
    Even corrupt government contracts can’t compensate for the loss of global marketshare every Musk nut was so convinced would increase to a degree where Tesla would be bigger than all other car companies combined.

    The stock price was always ridiculously high, and it still is.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
        21·
        16 hours ago

        https://www.financecharts.com/compare/TSLA,TM/value/pe-ratio

        So uh… Toyota’s PE is almost 8, a bit down from its historical average of about 9 or 10.

        Tesla’s is currently about 115.

        Down almost 50% from its highs around 200 during Jan 2025.

        If Tesla’s actual $$$ stock/share value dropped down to … lets say a PE of 10… that would be… well ok it is currently still dropping rather rapidly, but lets say rightnnow its $225 per share.

        If Tesla ‘corrected’ to a PE of 10, that’s a share value of about $19.57.

        About a 91% drop from where it is right now…

        … which would wipe out around $700 billion of market cap.

        These are ballpark figures based on a hypothetical scenario, this is not financial advice, but yeah, that is a way of looking at how overvalued Tesla is (or could be).

        EDIT: Musk himself apparently owns about 410 million Tesla shares, as of Feb 2025.

        https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052616/top-4-tesla-shareholders-tsla.asp

        So… a 91% reduction of 410m shares * $225 per share…

        That would be a personal loss for Musk of about $82 billion, from this exact moment.

        That’d put his net worth at about $273b, based on him having a net worth of $355b as of Feb 2025… but his net worth may already be significantly less than $355b, because Tesla has dropped a lot between the date of the source I’ve found for his net worth, and right now.

        EDIT 2

        https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/?list=rtb%2F&sh=7123ba5d7999

        Uh wow yeah, ok, between Feb 28 2025 and Mar 18 2025, he’s already lost about $34 billion… and is currently at $321 billion.

        So… if you take $82 b out of $321, then he’s down to around $240 ish.

        Sadly… he would be the richest person in the world, even after that, he’d have to get below $210b ish to sink to #2 under Bezos, below about $200b to be #3, also under Zucky boy.

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
        45·
        20 hours ago

        I wouldn’t be surprised if Tesla chooses to cook the books.
        It will be very strange if numbers aren’t in red.

        • My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world
          23·
          19 hours ago

          The price the market is willing to pay for one share of stock vs the amount of profit the company is making per share.

          A P/E of 90 means someone is willing to pay $90 for a share of a company that is netting $1 of profit for each outstanding share it has.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
            23·
            18 hours ago

            In terms of Tesla.

            • Tesla: 112
            • Amazon: 35
            • Microsoft: 31
            • Google: 20
            • GM: 7.7
            • Toyota: 7.4
            • BMW: 7.3
            • Honda: 6.9
            • Ford: 6.8
            • Mercedes-Benz: 5.8
            • Subaru: 5.4
            • Hyundai: 3.0

            So, let’s be incredibly generous and say that Tesla should have a P/E ratio that’s similar to a well run auto company, like 7. For it to have that P/E ratio, its stock price should be about $14 per share, not $228. If Tesla lost 94% of its value, it would have a P/E ratio similar to a well-run car company that made good cars with an anonymous CEO that nobody hates.

            But, just pretend it’s a tech company, not a car company. (Bullshit, obviously, but just pretend.) It is still overvalued by a factor of 4-5 compared to other big tech companies.

            Somebody’s going to make mountains of money shorting Tesla stock. The problem is that markets can remain irrational longer than most people can remain solvent.

          • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            14·
            17 hours ago

            And to add onto this, very high P/E ratios can often indicate a stock is artificially overvalued. Typical p/e’s on the DJIA average out to around 20, and most companies will have P/E’s between 5 to 30… a P/E of 90 indicates a huge, huge value bubble.

      • My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world
        8·
        19 hours ago

        BuT bUt BuT tHiNk AbOuT tHe MaSsIvE dIvIdEnD pOtEnTiAl WhEn ItS tEcH fUlLy MaTuReS! iT mAkEs Me FeEl LiKe I gEt To OwN sUm SpAcEx ToO!!!

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
      18·
      19 hours ago

      Musk basically ate through the massive bump he got after Trump’s Nov 4th win.

      The real pain for that stock is coming. It was already way overpriced before the election, and the speculators pumped it up even more.

  • My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world
    22·
    20 hours ago

    I wanted to join the selloff party so badly, I traded all my Total Market ETF holdings for (Tesla-free) Large Cap Value ETFs, and with the change left over I bought the cheapest Tesla Puts I could find.

    I just love that open pessimism for Friday’s Put contracts!

    • plootEnglish
      20·
      18 hours ago

      I recognize that these are words. That’s probably why I’m poor.

      • My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world
        11·
        17 hours ago

        I am mostly a disciple of Boglehead investing philosophy.

        A seminal resource early in my adult life was The Wealthy Barber, which I think still stands up well as a sensible guide to low-stress, long-term investing.

        An ETF is basically a thing you buy, like shares of stock, but each share of an ETF is made of a blend of a bunch of stocks. VTI is an ETF run by the brokerage Vanguard that tries to track the entire US stock market, weighted against how large a company is. You should try to find ETFs with a low “expense ratio”, which is basically the management fee for a blended fund. VTI is really low, something like 0.03%. So you pay vanguard $3 for every $10,000 gained (I think it works like that, anyway. All I know is it’s low and that’s good).

        I don’t endorse playing with Options Contracts unless you have an iron stomach and incredible self discipline. It’s legalized gambling in my view (although it has other valid uses, like hedging against losses…but it’s an advanced tool and can wreak havoc on savings when used poorly).

        • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
          5·
          15 hours ago

          I’m going to spend my money on more whiskey. I’m not sure if I’m too sober to understand or not nearly sober enough but we’re about to find out together.

    • stringere@sh.itjust.works
      4·
      14 hours ago

      So real talk, and of course I’m not going to toss my life savings (ha hahahahaha ha cries in american) into it but: how advisable is short selling Tesla right now and is there a reasonably “safe” way to do it? I know it always involves risk, especially in the event of a margin call, but for someone who is only slightly versed in these matter: how advisable would such a move be?

      Is it possible or likely for a reverse-Gamestop ploy to take place?

      • My_IFAKs___gone@lemmy.world
        2·
        13 hours ago

        I personally will never short anything. I’m not smart enough to do it right, I proved that to myself when I tried to actively invest. Were I to play the market again, if I were pessimistic about a stock, I would opt to buy Put Options to bet against it. Those come with their own risks, including being able to time the market in addition to its direction. I’ve seen others say you can buy positions in a ticker that tracks the inverse of Tesla, but it insulates you from the worst case of selling short (i.e. theoretical infinite loss, or at least way more loss than you could afford); it can only drop to zero for a 100% loss, but not more. At least, that’s my understanding, but I could be wrong. The advice I give myself is to just not play, except in the most boring way.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
    12·
    20 hours ago

    Are we still pretending this wasn’t the plan all along? I predicted this a long time ago, and I’m a dummy.

      • vxx@lemmy.world
        5·
        17 hours ago

        There’s a hole in that theory. musk has secured billions of credit with his Tesla shares. If Tesla goes down, musk goes down

        • keckbug@lemmy.world
          12·
          17 hours ago

          If musk owes the bank a million dollars, musk has a problem. If musk owes the bank billions of dollars, it’s the banks problem.

          In other words, the banks will bend over backwards to support him, his businesses, and his loans, whatever gives them the best chance of collecting.

          • vxx@lemmy.world
            8·
            16 hours ago

            Yes, he will have to sell stock, which further continues the death spiral of tesla and musk. Genius hasnt deversified and is all in on Tesla and is in debt. “The richest man on earth” is just his stocks. When he loses that, he lost everything.

            The bank doesnt care, they will get their money. musk does indeed care.

  • BlazeDaley@lemmy.world
    10·
    19 hours ago

    Looking into the sale by James he shared in his form 4 filing that his sale was to cover the transaction cost in exercising his non-qualified stock options (NSO). This sale results in closing part* of his NSO grant and acquisition of 477,011 shares. The net cash value of the sale comes out to $196k. This should result in ordinary income tax of roughly $42M.

    * I’m not actually sure how NSOs work here. It’s unclear to me if there are still exercisable options in this grant or any other outstanding grants.

    The shares were sold to cover the exercise price relating to the exercise of stock options to purchase 531,787 shares, which are scheduled to expire in 2025.

    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000177134025000004/xslF345X05/edgardoc.xml