Real money commitment: Musk spends $1 billion to increase his stake in Tesla.

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Musk increased his holdings in the company by about $1 billion in real cash, sending a strong signal of confidence to the market.

According to documents disclosed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, Musk conducted a series of trades last week, purchasing about 2.57 million shares of Tesla stock at prices between $371 and $396 per share, with a total value of about $1 billion. This is his first large-scale purchase on the open market since he bought about $10 million worth of shares in February 2020.

The market reacted swiftly and positively. After the disclosure, Tesla's stock price surged more than 8% in pre-market trading on Monday, reaching $428, boosting the company's market value by about $100 billion. Some analysts pointed out that this round of gains helped the stock achieve a technical breakout.

This increase in holdings comes as Tesla's board is vigorously defending Musk. Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said in an interview that Musk is "a once-in-a-generation leader," and stressed that keeping him is "the best way to optimize Tesla's future."

Aim for 20% Shareholding and Ambition in Artificial Intelligence

Regulatory filings show Musk's acquisition took place last Friday and was completed through a series of transactions. This nearly $1 billion investment is his largest personal move in the open market in recent years, a significant departure from his symbolic $10 million purchase in 2020.

This large-scale insider buying has been interpreted by investors as a sign of confidence in the company's prospects, directly igniting market enthusiasm. On Monday pre-market, Tesla shares surged nearly 8%, approaching historic highs. With the rise in share price, the company’s market capitalization also increased by $100 billion, putting enormous pressure on short sellers.

According to some market observers, this purchase pushed Tesla's stock price to break through the "ascending triangle" technical pattern.

Musk has not concealed his strategic intentions behind increasing his stake. He has long stated publicly that he hopes to hold at least 20% of Tesla’s shares to ensure that during Tesla’s transformation into the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics, he can effectively guard against activist investors or potential acquisition threats.

This purchase is an important step toward that goal. Just last month, Tesla’s board awarded Musk a trillion-dollar compensation package, raising his shareholding from 13% to 16%.

As a previous article pointed out, the compensation plan tightly links Musk’s pay with the company’s performance, with the focus no longer on automobiles, but on achieving a leap in profits through large-scale rollout of the robotaxi network and Optimus humanoid robots. Whether this plan succeeds will depend on Tesla’s ability to commercialize in the robotics field and on whether investors remain willing to buy into its future potential.

Tesla Amid Controversy and Stock Performance

Although Musk has expressed confidence with concrete action, he and the company still face many challenges.

Since the start of the year, Musk has faced criticism for his "divisive political" stances, with some arguing this has hurt Tesla's brand image. In May of this year, he resigned as head of the "Office of American Innovation" in the Trump administration and promised to devote more time to Tesla.

In terms of capital market performance, Tesla’s stock price is down 2% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index is up 12% in the same period, indicating Tesla's stock performance has lagged the broader market.

According to the billionaire index reported by the media, Musk is currently the world’s richest person, with a net worth of about $419 billion.

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