Tesla Motors announced on January 29, Friday that CEO and co-founder Elon Musk increased his stake in the electric car company by $100 million. Musk spent about $50 million in cash to cover the cost of the price of the exercise and related taxes to show his stalwart faith the company's stocks will rise. The move will give the company a boost as it speeds up production for the Model X crossover SUV and plans to introduce the Model 3 sedan in March.
Tesla sent an alert that the CEO exercised about 532,000 of his stock options in the e-car company, according to Tech Crunch. They had a value of about $100 million.
A Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing shows that the options were exercised at $6.63 per share. If Musk had sold the shares that are valued at $191 per share, he would have earned $98 million.
Musk now owns about 29 million shares of Tesla stock, or about 22 percent of the company, according to The Verge. He has about 2.82 million options in the bank that he could exercise during the future.
Tesla plans to introduce its most affordable electric car in March. Musk stated last year that the Model 3 will likely be the most important car that that the automaker produces.
Last year Tesla sold about 50,000 vehicles. It hopes the Model 3 sedan will help the company to sell 500,000 units by 2020.
Some rumors have claimed that Tesla will also launch its Model Y crossover in March. However, reliable sources have reported only the Model 3 will be included in the launch event.
Model 3 will have a base price of $35,000. However, government incentives could lower the price between $7,500 to over $13,000 based on the state.
Tesla Motors will take pre-orders soon after its March event. Production is scheduled to start in 2017.
This week Musk reported that the new Tesla electric vehicle will be a little smaller than the Model S. It will also have fewer bells and whistles.
The Model 3 will still probably have more storage space than a standard compact car. That is due to the electric motor and sub-floor batteries.