Elon Musk exercised options and offloaded more Tesla Inc. shares, continuing a streak of sales that helped tank the stock last week by the most since March 2020.  

The world’s richest person disposed of more than 934,000 shares on Monday for about US$930 million, according to regulatory filings. That adds to the US$6.9 billion he already sold last week, just after he took an unusual Twitter poll asking whether he should dispose of 10 per cent of his Tesla stake. Part of Monday’s sales were to help pay taxes on the exercise of 2.1 million options.

Musk’s survey and US$7.8 billion worth of sales come as the U.S. debates whether the rich are paying enough taxes. In a weekend tweet, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said “We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share,” to which the Tesla boss replied, “Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word…”

Some of the stock sales were part of a pre-arranged trading plan established in September. The Tesla chief executive officer has millions of equity options he needs to exercise before next August, something he didn’t disclose in the Twitter survey. Back in September, he mentioned he was likely to exercise “a huge block” of them toward the end of the year.

To meet the 10 per cent threshold he gave in the poll, Musk would need to sell some 17 million Tesla shares, more than double the 7.3 million he’s already offloaded in recent days. Including his exercisable options, he’d need to sell even more. 

Tesla shares rose 1.3 per cent to US$1,026.19 at 9:35 a.m. in New York. The stock has dropped about 17 per cent from its peak earlier this month. 

With a US$279.3 billion fortune, Musk is far richer than anyone else in the world. Despite Tesla’s plunge in recent days, the stock has added 44 per cent this year and his fortune has increased by US$109.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.