DETROIT (AP) – After making a promise on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold about 4.5 million shares of the electric car maker’s stock, raising over $5 billion.
The sales, disclosed in 10 regulatory filings late Wednesday, amount to about 3% of Musk’s stake in the company.
About $1.1 billion will go toward paying tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September.
Last weekend, Musk said he would sell 10% of his holdings in the company, worth more than $20 billion, based on the results of a poll he conducted on Twitter. The sale tweets caused a sell off of the stock Monday and Tuesday, but it recovered some on Wednesday. The shares were up 2.6% to $1,096 in extended trading Wednesday, and they have risen more than 50% this year.
The filings also disclosed that Musk exercised options to buy just over 2.1 million shares for $6.24 each. The company’s stock closed Wednesday at $1,067.95 per share.