Tesla Director Nets $5 Million After Cashing In Stock Options This Week

It turns out that Ballie Gifford isn’t the only one unloading shares of Tesla near all-time highs. And if you keep asking yourself why Tesla’s Board of Directors doesn’t seem to weigh in much on Elon’s (or the company’s) behavior, we might have your answer.

It was disclosed late Wednesday night that Tesla Board member Kathleen Wilson-Thompson exercised an option to buy 12,500 shares at $44.95 and then turned around and sold them immediately at more than 10x that price.

After selling at an average weighted price of about $451.48, according to MarketWatch, the sale likely netted Thompson slightly over a cool $5 million. 

Wilson-Thompson hasn’t even been with the company for 2 years yet; she has only been on the board since December 2018. In 2019, her total compensation from Tesla was $7.36 million.

Recall, on the same day that Wilson-Thompson sold, we noted that Ballie Gifford, the company’s largest outside shareholder, had trimmed its stake in the company citing portfolio weighting restrictions. 

For now, both sellers seemed to have great timing. Tesla is well off its $502 all time high ($2510 pre-split) and is slated to open trading on Friday around $380 per share (about $1900 pre-split).

Tesla has shed more than $100 billion in market cap after Wilson-Thompson and Gifford’s selling.