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Tesla chief executive Elon Musk bought about $1bn of the electric-vehicle maker’s shares last week, according to a filing, sending the stock up more than 8 per cent in pre-market trading on Monday.
Musk bought around 2.57mn shares at prices between $371 and $396, according to the regulatory filing on Monday.
The purchases came as Tesla chair Robyn Denholm defended the board’s decision to offer Musk a $1tn pay package if he met a series of formidable targets over the next decade.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Denholm hailed Musk as a “generational leader”, adding that the best way to “optimise the future of Tesla” was to keep Musk in charge. The entrepreneur is the world’s richest person, with a fortune estimated at $419bn.
The share acquisition is Musk’s first on the open market since he bought shares worth about $10mn on Valentine’s Day in 2020.
Musk has long argued that he wants to own at least a fifth of the shares to protect Tesla against activist investors or a takeover, as the carmaker pivots to developing powerful artificial intelligence technology and millions of robots.
Under his newly proposed pay package, Musk will be granted 12 per cent of Tesla’s shares if over the next decade he can octuple its valuation to $8.5tn, boost earnings 24-fold and sell millions more cars and robots.
With the case still pending on Musk’s 2018 pay deal that was struck down by a Delaware judge, Tesla last month awarded him an interim pay package that increased his ownership from 13 per cent to 16 per cent.
If the entire 2025 package is activated and Tesla wins the Delaware appeal, Musk’s stake is expected to rise to about 29 per cent.
But Musk, who has long been Tesla’s driving force, has drawn criticism this year for damaging the company’s brand through his divisive politics.
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In May, he quit his role in US President Donald Trump’s administration, where he ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and vowed to dedicate more of this time to Tesla.
Shares in Tesla have fallen this year after rising following Trump’s election in 2024. Its stock is down 2 per cent in 2025, compared with a 12 per cent rise for the S&P 500.
In an interview published at the weekend, Pope Leo singled out Musk as an example of the kind of wealth that was undermining “the value of human life, of the family, of the value of society”.
