Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16, 2023.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Tesla shares jumped after CEO Elon Musk disclosed Monday his first purchase of the stock in the open market since February 2020.
Musk bought 2.57 million shares at various prices Friday which tallies up to about $1 billion, a significant insider acquisition that traders took as a vote of confidence from the outspoken CEO.
Tesla shares were higher by 6% in premarket trading Monday morning. They closed Friday slightly lower for 2025 despite a recent rally, with the stock up more than 25% over the last 3 months.
These kinds of purchases are rare for Musk with him last buying about 200,000 shares worth around $10 million on February 14, 2020, according to Verity data. It’s his largest purchase ever by value, according to Verity.
The company earlier this month said it would ask shareholders to approve a new pay package for Musk that could be worth up to $975 billion based on various ambitious milestones. Before the purchases Friday, Musk owned around 13% of Tesla.
Tesla shares this year have been weighed down by slumping sales partly tied to Musk’s political activities hurting the brand, along with the end of certain incentives for electric vehicles by the Trump administration.
Analysts are torn on the stock with the consensus price target on Wall Street calling for about a 20% decline from here, according to Tipranks.com. Though many are optimistic over the long term if Musk can pull off a transformation of the company to focus more on autonomous driving, A.I. and robotics. The CEO wants shareholders to approve an investment by Tesla into his latest company, xAI.
The insider purchase “is a huge sign of confidence for Tesla bulls and shows Musk is doubling down on his Tesla A.I. bet,” said Dan Ives, global head of tech research at Wedbush.
The pay package shareholders will vote on in November has an ultimate goalpost of a $8.5 trillion market value. The stock was worth $1.3 trillion at Friday’s close.
