Is Elon Musk really done selling Tesla shares? He said it 4 times in the last year

Shares of electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc TSLA are down 71.7% year-to-date, making the stock one of the worst performers of 2022 in the entire S&P 500. Controversial Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been among the sellers, dumping about $40 billion in Tesla stock over the past year. Musk recently said he won't be selling Tesla stock for a while, but this certainly isn't the first time he's said he's done selling.

What happened? On December 22, 2022, Musk said in a Twitter Spaces chat that he would not be offloading Tesla stock for the foreseeable future.

"I won't sell stocks until, I don't know, probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances and probably not next year," said Musk.< /p>

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Musk's past promises: Musk has repeatedly made similar statements over the past year.

On December 22, 2021, Musk tweeted that he was "almost done" selling Tesla stock after selling nearly 1 million shares worth about $1 billion dollars. Musk ultimately sold around $22 billion worth of Tesla stock in 2021.

He resumed selling in April 2022, giving up another $8.4 billion in Tesla stock. On April 28, 2022, Musk tweeted "no further TSLA sales expected after today".

Musk then sold $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock in August 2022. When asked by a Twitter follower if he was done selling stock, Musk replied "yes" on Aug. 9, 2022, adding that it was "important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock" associated with its $44 billion Twitter takeover.

Musk then sold another $3.9 billion worth of Tesla stock in November 2022 and another $3.6 billion worth of Tesla stock in December 2022 before making his final promise to stop selling on December 22.

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Benzinga take: Tesla shares have not reacted much to Musk's latest promise to stop selling his Tesla shares, and the market has apparently learned to take whatever Musk says with a grain of salt at this point. Musk's tendency to twist the truth even cost him and Tesla $40 million in 2018 when Musk paid a fraud settlement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the SEC determined that Musk's statement that he "secured funding" for a deal to take Tesla private was not factual. .

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