Tesla shares surge as Elon Musk executes $1 billion stock buyback

The Tesla stock soared in pre-market trading Monday, September 15, as the company CEO, Elon Musk, announced an open market buy of $1 billion worth of Tesla stock.

This marks the largest buying of Tesla stock in history.

Musk reportedly acquired about 2.57 million shares at various prices on September 12, his first large-scale purchase in the market since February of 2020.

The action, which investors viewed as a great sign of confidence in Musk by the frequently controversial leader, sent Tesla stock soaring by ,pre than 6 percent.

This injection of optimism comes at a critical time for the electric vehicle maker, whose shares had closed slightly negative for the year as of Friday, September 12, despite a 25% rally over the past three months.

The company has experienced decreasing sales, which in part were caused by the perception of the brand associated with the political activities of Musk and the reinstatement of federal EV incentives.

The time in which the purchase occurred is also significant as Tesla is is planning to request shareholder endorsement in November of a new, mega ambitious performance package for Musk that would be valued at as much as $1 trillion in case the firm attains an extraordinary 8.5 trillion market valuation.

Before this acquisition, Musk had about 13 percent of Tesla.

The buyback is an unusual personal market step by the CEO, who has not been selling shares but instead of buying them, giving the market a split of opinions among analysts on the stock.