TEXAS, Sept 16 – Billionaire Elon Musk has scooped up roughly $1bn (£735m) worth of Tesla shares, in what is being seen as a vote of confidence in the electric car maker.
Shares in Tesla, which have struggled to advance this year, jumped more than 6% in early trading on Monday on the news.
Musk already held a roughly 13% stake in the company, but he has long sought more control of the firm, which he has been pushing to invest in robotaxis, automation and artificial intelligence (AI).
The company’s board recently proposed a compensation plan valued at roughly $1 trillion, which would grant Musk up to 12% of the firm’s shares if the company reaches certain targets.
The board also said it would grant him $29bn worth of shares last month as a separate “interim” award, after a larger pay package agreed in 2018 was struck down in a court battle.
The proposals followed discussions with Musk, in which he demanded a 25% stake in the firm, at times threatening to quit Tesla entirely over the issue.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said Musk was likely looking to build back his stake in Tesla, noting that “markets like it” when company leaders buy into their own companies because it suggests they feel positive about the firm’s future performance.
But she noted that there could also be other motivations at play.”
An inventive and ungenerous interpretation of Musk’s actions is he saw the news about Larry Ellison becoming the world’s richest man and decided to juice Tesla stock a bit to regain the title,” she said. “Stranger things have happened.”
