Elon Musk has sold 934,091 more shares of Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) worth $1.01 billion to meet his tax obligations that have come with the exercising of options to buy 2.1 million shares, The Economic Times said in a report, citing regulatory filings.
Shares of the company closed 6.4% down on Friday. The stock lost another 0.7% in the extended trading session to end the day at $1,008. (See Insiders’ Hot Stocks on TipRanks)
Texas-based Tesla designs and produces electric cars, battery energy storage from home to grid-scale, solar panels and solar roof tiles, and offers related products and services.
Options to Buy Tesla Shares
Since the beginning of November, Musk has sold 10.1 million shares of the company worth $10.9 billion to exercise options to buy 10.7 million shares.
He still retains an option to acquire another around 10 million shares of the electric vehicle (EV) maker at $6.24 per share. This option expires in August 2022.
Wall Street’s Take
Last month, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives maintained a Buy rating on the stock and raised the price target to $1,400 from $1,100 (38% upside potential).
The analyst expects China to account for 40% of Tesla’s vehicle deliveries next year.
In a note to investors, Ives said, “While PR/safety headwinds were front and center in China earlier this year, we have seen this demand trend reverse aggressively in a bullish way for Tesla into year-end, with the company now on a ~50k monthly run-rate for China into 2022.”
“Investors are continuing to digest the massive transformation coming to the auto industry around EV revolution, as the green tidal wave results in a $5 trillion market opportunity over the next decade with Tesla leading the way,” Ives added.
“While the semiconductor shortage that has plagued the auto industry this year remains a headwind for Tesla, it is a transitory issue,” he said.
Overall, the stock has a Hold consensus rating based on 12 Buys, 6 Holds and 7 Sells. The average Tesla price target of $938.52 implies 7.5% downside potential. Shares have gained 67.7% over the past six months.
Website Traffic
TipRanks’ Website Traffic Tool, which uses data from SEMrush Holdings (SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, offers insight into Tesla’s performance.
According to the tool, compared to the previous year, the company’s website traffic registered a 13.2% decrease in global visits in October. However, the website traffic has increased 1.7% year-to-date against the same period last year.
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