Elon Musk sells more Tesla shares, has so far offloaded stake for about $14.1 billion

Elon Musk sold yet more shares in Tesla Inc. for $528 million, meaning he’s now more than three-quarters of the way to making good on his pledge to sell 10 per cent of his stake in the electric car maker.

Musk has been offloading Tesla stock since asking his Twitter followers in November whether he should sell some of his stake. He said he would exercise options towards the end of the year and set up a share-trading plan prior to the poll.

The billionaire has now sold around 13.5 million shares for about $14.1 billion, regulatory filings show. He’ll need to dispose of some 17 million shares all up to offload 10 per cent of his interest in the US-based EV pioneer, assuming his pledge excludes exercisable options.

Tesla has declined by about a quarter since a peak on November 4, just prior to Musk’s Twitter poll, to which the majority of answered “yes”. The shares rose 2.1 per cent in premarket trading after closing at $938.53 in New York on Tuesday.

Musk, 50, is the world’s richest man, atop of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a fortune of $244.9 billion. He said in a Tweet late on Sunday that he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year.