New trouble

Tesla shareholder sues Musk for insider trading

Musk and his brother Kimbal are said to have sold shares worth 30 billion dollars before the share price fell.

(Bild: AFP)

Shortly before the decisive shareholder vote on the billion-euro remuneration package for Tesla founder Elon Musk, a major shareholder has sued the company boss for insider trading. In the statement of claim filed on Tuesday, the pension fund ERSRI calls on the court to order Musk to repay billions in "ill-gotten gains" that the Tesla CEO made by selling Tesla shares using insider information.

Musk and his brother Kimbal, a director of Tesla, sold a total of 30 billion dollars worth of shares in the electric car maker between late 2021 and late 2022 before news broke that pushed the share price down, according to the lawsuit filed in Delaware Chancery Court.

Twitter purchase concealed
Musk allegedly concealed his plan to use the proceeds to buy the social media platform Twitter in order to sell Tesla shares at artificially inflated prices. Musk is also alleged to have sold shares despite knowing that deliveries of new vehicles were falling far short of official targets.

Musk is also currently the subject of an official investigation. It is investigating whether he violated US securities laws when he bought Twitter shares in 2022.

ERSRI holds around 140,000 shares in the electric car manufacturer. Tesla shares closed at 170.66 dollars on Tuesday, which corresponds to a value of around 24 million dollars.

Trembling over 56 billion dollars
Tesla shareholders are invited to their annual general meeting on Thursday. Among other things, the 56 billion dollar remuneration package for Elon Musk from 2018, which was recently overturned by a court, will be put to the vote.