(Reuters) – Tesla shares rose in trading on the Frankfurt bourse on Thursday, even after overnight filings showed chief executive and top holder Elon Musk has sold about $5 billion of the stock over recent days.
Telsa’s Frankfurt-listed shares rose 4.1% to 953 euros ($1,102.05) in early trade to recoup some of the heavy losses suffered earlier in the week, in the period when Musk had sold.
Musk’s selling was his first since 2016 and followed his weekend poll of Twitter users about offloading 10% of his Tesla stake, which comprises most of his estimated $281 billion fortune.
Investors downplayed the significance of Musk’s trading for the stock’s outlook, pointing instead to strong car orders and Musk’s professed faith in the company, though brokers said it could be a bumpy day in U.S. trade ahead.
“It is not like he has a negative view of his company,” said Dave Wang, a portfolio manager at UBS Global Wealth Management in Singapore.
Filings showed Musk’s trust sold nearly 3.6 million shares in Tesla, worth around $4 billion, while he also sold another 934,000 shares for $1.1 billion to cover tax obligations after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares.
The sales equate to about 3% of Musk’s total holdings, though it wasn’t clear if they related to his weekend Twitter poll.
($1 = 0.8648 euros)
(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru and Tom Westbrook in Sydney; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Lincoln Feast.)
