(Bloomberg) -- Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk exercised more than 2.15 million of stock options in the electric car-maker, and then sold stock, days after he held a vote over Twitter asking his followers whether he should sell some of his stock.
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Musk exercised the options at a price of $6.24, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday.
“The shares of common stock were sold solely to satisfy the reporting person’s tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options to purchase 2,154,572 shares,” the filing shows.
Tesla stock closed Wednesday at $1067.95.
It’s the billionaire’s first sale since 2016, when he last exercised stock options and liquidated some of his newly acquired shares to cover about $590 million of income taxes.
The sale was prompted by a Nov. 6 poll Musk set up on Twitter, saying that “much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.” Almost 58% of the 3.5 million votes were cast in favor of a sale.
Musk, 50, is the world’s richest person with an almost $300 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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