Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, sold $5bn worth of Tesla shares after his Twitter followers voted in favour him offloading some stock.
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk unloaded $5 billion of stock in the electric-car maker, shortly after restoking a social media debate over the tax treatment of billionaires’ shareholdings.
The world’s richest person so far has disposed of more than 4.5 million shares this week, according to regulatory filings. Those were his first sales in more than five years.
Musk, who frequently stokes controversy on Twitter, created a firestorm over the weekend with a survey asking whether he should sell part of his Tesla stake. While he portrayed his proposal as having to do with debate over billionaires avoiding taxes, the filings released Wednesday show some of the transactions were pre-arranged in mid-September — weeks before the poll. He also didn’t mention in the tweets that he has millions of stock options that must be exercised before next August, when they expire.
The poll resulted in a decisive vote for Musk to sell and sent Tesla shares down 16% in the first two days of the week. The stock pared those declines Wednesday, closing up 4.3%, and rose 2.5% before the start of regular trading Thursday.
On Monday, Musk offloaded about $1.1 billion worth of stock to pay income taxes on equity options that he also exercised that day, two of the filings showed. On Tuesday and Wednesday, he carried out the remaining sales. The filings detailing those disposals didn’t indicate that they were pre-planned.
The documents shed no light on whether Musk’s weekend Twitter poll had any bearing on his decision to carry out some or all of the transactions – or whether he’ll keep selling until he’s met the 10% threshold. To get there, he’d have to get rid of roughly 17 million shares, and even more if he also includes exercisable options in his total holdings.
The options Musk exercised came from a big award he received in 2012. Taxes on such transactions are usually covered by immediately disposing of some of the newly acquired shares. Earlier this year, Musk said publicly that he likely would exercise options earned from the 2012 award in the near future.
It’s possible that the option exercises and related sales would have been executed regardless of the Twitter poll’s outcome, given that they were made under the pre-arranged plan. But the terms of such plans aren’t subject to public disclosure, and executives have wide latitude to cancel or modify them at any time.
The headline-grabbing Twitter referendum pummeled Tesla’s shares on Monday and Tuesday, wiping out $50 billion from Musk’s net worth.
The billionaire last sold shares in 2016, when he exercised options and liquidated some of the newly acquired stock to cover about $590 million of income taxes.
In his Nov. 6 poll announcement, Musk wrote that “much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.” Almost 58% of the 3.5 million votes were cast in favor of a sale.
Musk, 50, is the world’s richest person with an almost $300 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
(Updates shares in fourth paragraph, adds tax debate to first paragraph) –With assistance from Andrew Heathcote, Dana Hull and Joanna Ossinger.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – Thomson Reuters reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue rose eight per cent.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$301 million or 67 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The result compared with a profit of US$367 million or 80 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled US$1.72 billion, up from US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
In its outlook, Thomson Reuters says it now expects organic revenue growth of 7.0 per cent for its full year, up from earlier expectations for growth of 6.5 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Thomson Reuters says it earned 80 cents US per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 82 cents US per share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 76 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
