Tesla Drops, Cryptos Pop After Musk Sells More Stock, Tweets Tesla Will Take Doge For Merch Sales

Shares of Tesla are plunging in the pre-market session after it was revealed last night that CEO Elon Musk has continued to sell stock.

Musk has sold another $906.5 million in shares, according to Bloomberg. TSLA is now down more than 21% since Musk took his infamous Twitter poll over whether or not he should offload a 10% stake in the company. Musk kicked off the selling after the poll by offloading more than $10 billion in stock in less than a month.

Four days ago, on the same day he “joked” about quitting his jobs, Musk also casually unloaded another $963 million in Tesla stock.

Recall, last week, Musk also Tweeted that he was “thinking of quitting” his jobs to “become a full time influencer”. Also, we noted two weeks ago that Musk had dumped $10 billion in stock in the span of about a month. 

“Musk has been claiming that the purpose of recent stock sales has been to offset tax liabilities, but Musk’s sales have shown no signs of stopping just yet,” we wrote.

To unload the 10% of his Tesla stake he queried Twitter users about on November 6, Musk would need to sell 17 million shares, which equates to about 1.7% of the company’s outstanding stock.

If he follows through on these sales, Bloomberg writes that Musk “could end up shaving well over $2 billion off his tax bill as a result of his move to Texas from California last year”.

In other news, the debate about whether or not Elon Musk is using his Twitter account to play SEO games with potential negative news for his companies continues. Musk Tweeted last night that Tesla would “make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes”:

Tesla will make some merch buyable with Doge & see how it goes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021

Regardless of Musk’s intention for his Tweet, the comment put a bid under cryptos, with dogecoin even rising about 20% in the hours following the Tweet:

We’re sure the entire market – and especially Cathie Wood – will be anxious to see how Tesla shares respond today.