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Elon Musk scoops up US$25m worth of Tesla shares

Last updated: 16:19 13 Jun 2018 EDT, First published: 16:08 13 Jun 2018 EDT

Elon Musk
Tesla shares are up almost 20% since the start of June

A day after announcing the sacking of 9% of Tesla’s workforce, Elon Musk has bought 72,500 shares of the electric-car maker valued at roughly US$25mln, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Tesla’s shares are up almost 20% since the start of June, and Musk’s purchase is bound to irritate short-sellers of Tesla’s stock who Musk has promised to “burn” in the past.

The steady rise in the unprofitable car maker’s share price has put short-sellers in a difficult position and their mark-to-market losses in June come to US$2.09bln, according to data the financial analytics firm S3 Partners supplied to Reuters.

The job cuts, which Musk tweeted about this week, affect mostly salaried workers at Tesla, and will result in the firing of about 3,500 employees at the company, which employs roughly 40,000. The sackings are not aimed at the car maker’s production workers so this will not impede Tesla’s ability to reach its Model 3 production targets in coming months.

Read: Electric car maker Tesla slashes 9% of its workforce as part of what Elon Musk calls a 'difficult, but necessary' reorganization

Last week, Musk said it was “quite likely” that Tesla will meet its challenge of manufacturing 5,000 Model 3 cars each week by the close of June.

Musk said the job cuts were necessary to put the company on the road to profitability after almost 15 years of not delivering an annual profit.

Tesla shares broke even today, finishing at US$344.78.

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