Elon Musk has bought about $1bn of Tesla shares, writes Hugo Duncan.
The tycoon snapped up 2.57m shares in the electric car-maker he runs at prices between $371 and $396, according to regulatory filings.
The purchase was seen as a vote of confidence in the company and sent shares up nearly 7%.
The move came as Musk reclaimed his crown as the world’s richest person having briefly been overtaken last week by Larry Ellison, boss of Texas-based technology company Oracle.
A rebound in Tesla shares since means Musk has a fortune of $429bn compared to Ellison’s $360bn.
The filings were published as Tesla chairman Robyn Denholm was forced to defend the company’s plan to hand Musk a pay package worth $1tn over the next decade if various targets are hit.
Denholm hailed Musk as a "generational leader" and said the success of Tesla depended on his presence at the top of the company.
The comments came after Pope Leo XIV criticised corporate pay packages and highlighted Musk’s potential earnings.
Noting that some chief executives earn 600 times more than their staff – compared with four to six times more 60 years ago – the Pope said Musk could soon be the world’s first trillionaire.
"What does that mean, and what’s that about?" he said. "If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble."
Musk came under fire this year after joining Donald Trump’s administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
His political activity sparked a backlash in parts of the world with Tesla sales taking a hit. The car-making company is also facing fierce competition from Chinese competitors.
Musk quit his job at Doge in May, however, after falling out with Trump and has since vowed to dedicate more time to Tesla.
His business interests do not stop there, however. Musk has also bought Twitter, which he renamed X, and runs rockets company SpaceX, his xAI start-up, tunnelling group The Boring Company and Neuralink, which implants computer chips in the brain.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: "Musk’s bumper purchase of Tesla stock has electrified the stock price. Musk, and Tesla, seem to have put Doge behind them, and this very public vote of confidence in the company by its founder, and with signs that sales are recovering in Europe... the stock has room to run higher.’
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the share purchase was "the clearest signal yet that he’s slamming the accelerator on being all in again".
Photo: Elon Musk. (Pic: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
