Who Owns Tesla? Because Elon Musk Is Selling Out!

As is typical for entrepreneurs, Tesla CEO Elon Musk will eventually sell some of his company’s equity. However, he maintains complete authority over the business that he established.

According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, Elon Musk still owns 445.6 million shares of Tesla (TSLA) stock despite the fact that he has sold the company’s stock seven times in 2018, including his most recent transaction of 19.5 million shares. As a result, he now holds a 14.1% ownership stake in the electric-vehicle company that he established in 2003. This ensures that he continues to hold the title of being the only owner of the most stock.

This also indicates that Musk maintains a greater degree of financial control over his company than the majority of other tycoons do over their own businesses. Mark Zuckerberg still retains 13% of Meta, which is a costly position to possess at this time of year. Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon.com, owns just 9.8% of the company.

However, there are still those shareholders who are upset about Musk’s decision to sell. “Musk, who has stated on multiple occasions over the course of the past year that he is “done selling Tesla stock,” once again loses more credibility with investors and his loyalists in a boy who cried wolf moment,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush. “Musk has repeatedly said that he is “done selling Tesla stock.”

Who then would become Tesla’s largest shareholder in the future?
Biggest Tesla Owners Now

It’s possible that Musk is reducing his stake in Tesla, but large investors in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are piling up.

Vanguard Group is the company with the second-largest stake in Tesla. The massive investment firm, which is the top shareholder in the majority of publicly traded companies, holds 204.7 million shares of Tesla, which gives it a 6.5% interest in the company. Two of the five exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that own the most Tesla shares are both managed by Vanguard. Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) holds 17.6 million shares, while Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) owns 19.3 million shares.

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In addition to managing investments, the investment manager is also responsible for running the ETF that has the fourth greatest percentage exposure to Tesla. Nearly sixteen percent of the portfolio of the Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF (VCR) is invested in a single stock. Vanguard has been making aggressive purchases as of late in order to meet the requirements of these ETFs. Its current ownership of Tesla stock is roughly 58% higher than what it was two years ago.

And next up on our list is BlackRock, yet another titan in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) sector. The organization is the owner of 166 million Tesla shares, which represents 5.3% of the total number of shares issued by the firm. After the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust, the iShares Core S&P 500 Exchange Traded Fund (IVV) offered by BlackRock is the third-largest holder of Tesla shares (QQQ).

In addition, BlackRock is making significant investments in Tesla shares, just like Vanguard. In the span of two years, its total number of holding shares has increased by roughly 46 percent.
At Tesla, There Will Be a Change of Guard

The sale that Musk is making, on the other hand, is a perfectly typical part of the developing process of a company.

The shares of Tesla is presently owned by large institutions for more than 42 percent. Traditional investment managers make up the vast majority of such owners. Individuals such as Musk control only 15.6% of the company, with Musk himself owning the great majority. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle (ORCL), is the only other significant individual investor in the company. The remaining shares, which amount to a total of 41% of the corporation, are owned by public investors such as state pensions.

What about activists? They don’t play much of a role in Tesla at all. Only 0.1% of the company’s shares are held by D. E. Shaw. Because of this, even if Musk is selling his shares, he is still in control of the company.

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