Dive Brief:

• Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja, Board Chair Robyn Denholm, and board member Kimbal Musk — the brother of CEO Elon Musk — sold shares of the electric vehicle company this week, collectively selling tens of millions in company stock, according to recent securities filings.  
• Taneja, a company veteran who took the CFO seat in 2023, sold approximately 7,000 shares valued at approximately $2.8 million on Monday, while Denhalm, also Monday sold 112,390 shares for about $43 million, according to company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday. Kimbal Musk, meanwhile, sold approximately $27 million in shares on Thursday, according to another filing.
• The stock sales come after Denhalm, Kimbal Musk and other Tesla board members — including James Murdoch and Oracle co-founder Lawrence Ellison — recently agreed to collectively return roughly $919 million in compensation to Tesla in a Delaware settlement last month. The settlement followed a lawsuit alleging the directors had overpaid themselves, Reuters recently reported.

Dive Insight:

The board members agreed to return approximately $277 million in cash, $459 million in stock options, and to forgo stock options for the period between 2021 and 2023 valued at about $184 million, Reuters reported. The directors did not admit wrongdoing.

Sales by top leadership also come as the EV company is facing an uncertain regulatory environment in the U.S.—despite Elon Musk’s close ties to President Donald Trump, Tesla is among the businesses that could be impacted by potential tariffs proposed by the new administration. Tesla remains “very reliant” on parts for its vehicles sourced from across global markets, Taneja said during the company’s most recent earnings call on Jan. 29, with the CFO warning proposed tariffs could negatively affect Tesla’s profitability.  

Additionally, plans by the new administration to “eliminate the electric vehicle mandate” as laid out in a recent executive order — which could include the possible removal of an EV tax credit for buyers — could stymie sales for the company at a time when overall demand for EVs has declined, CFO Dive previously reported.

Kimbal Musk’s sale of approximately $27 million in company shares also comes as Tesla is set to have its worst week since the U.S. presidential election, in part due to what Bloomberg classed as “shockingly bad” sales reports from Europe — which could indicate Musk’s political activities in the U.S. are hurting the EV’s profitability, according to a Friday report. Tesla sales in Germany plummeted to their lowest figure in four years last month, while sales in France and the United Kingdom also declined. Deliveries in China, meanwhile, slumped by 11.5% year-over-year, Bloomberg reported.

In discussing Tesla’s efforts to release fully self-driving vehicles during the company’s Q4 earnings call, Musk referred to Europe as “a layer cake of regulations and bureaucracy, which really needs to be addressed.”

Musk has remained bullish on Tesla’s prospects, claiming during the call that “things are really going to go ballistic next year, and really ballistic in ‘27 and ’28.” The EV maker reported an 8% drop year-over-year in automotive revenues, logging about $19.8 billion in Q4 compared to total automotive revenues of $21.5 billion in Q4 2023, according to the companies’ earnings results.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment.