Entrepreneurs sell stock eventually, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is no different. But he's still firmly in control of the company he co-founded.
Even after selling Tesla stock eight times this year including his most recent sale of 22 million shares, Musk still owns 423.6 million shares, says S&P Global Market Intelligence. That gives him a 13.4% ownership position in the electric-vehicle company started in 2003 that he co-founded. That keeps him the largest single owner of the stock.
That also means Musk is still in more financial control of his company than many other tycoons are of theirs. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos owns just 9.7% of the company and Mark Zuckerberg still holds 13.3% of Meta Platforms, a costly position this year.
Some investors, though, still lament Musk's selling. The selling seems connected to Musk needing to finance his ongoing fiasco at Twitter. "The Twitter nightmare continues as Musk uses Tesla as his own ATM machine to keep funding the red ink at Twitter which gets worse by the day as more advertisers flee the platform with controversy increasing driven by Musk," said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush.
So who would be the biggest owner of Tesla next?
Biggest Tesla Owners Now
Musk might be easing up his position in Tesla, but giant ETF and mutual fund investors are loading up.
The second-largest holder of Tesla is Vanguard Group. The investment company giant, which is the largest owner of most stocks, owns 213 million shares of Tesla for a 6.8% stake in the company. Vanguard runs etwo of the five ETFs that own the most Tesla shares. Vanguard S&P 500 ETF owns 19.9 million shares and Vanguard Total Stock Market owns 17.6 million shares.
The investment manager also runs the ETF with the fourth largest percentage exposure to Tesla. Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF puts nearly 16% of its portfolio in the single stock. To satisfy the needs of these ETFs, Vanguard has been aggressively buying. It now owns nearly 60% more Tesla stock than it did two years ago. Vanguard continues to be the top buyer of Tesla stock.
And next up is BlackRock, another giant in the ETF industry. The company owns 171 million shares of Tesla, accounting for 5.4% of the company's shares outstanding. BlackRock's iShares Core S&P 500 ETF is the third-largest holder of Tesla stock after SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and Invesco QQQ Trust.
And like Vanguard, BlackRock is aggressively adding Tesla shares. Its number of shares held is up nearly 46% in two years' time.
Changing Of The Guard At Tesla
Musk's selling, though, is a normal part of a company's maturing process.
Big institutions now own more than 44% of Tesla's stock. Most of those owners are traditional investment managers. Individuals like Musk only own 14.9%, a vast majority which is Musk himself. The only other large individual investor is Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Public investors like state pensions own the balance of the shares, totaling 41% of the company.
And activists? They're hardly involved (yet) in Tesla. D. E. Shaw only owns 0.1% of the stock. And that's why, while Musk is selling, he's still in control.
Who Owns Tesla Stock
| Holder | Common shares held (millions) | % of CSO (common stock outstanding) |
|---|---|---|
| Elon Musk | 423.6 | 13.4% |
| Vanguard Group | 213.0 | 6.8 |
| BlackRock | 171.9 | 5.4 |
| State Street Global Advisors | 99.6 | 3.2 |
| Capital Research and Management | 97.8 | 3.1 |
| Geode Capital Management | 47.5 | 1.5 |
| T. Rowe Price Group | 47.0 | 1.5 |
| Lawrence Ellison | 45.0 | 1.4 |
| FMR (Fidelity) | 34.8 | 1.1 |
| Jennison Associates | 29.6 | 0.9 |
Sources: S&P Global Market Intelligence, IBD
Follow Matt Krantz on Twitter @mattkrantz
