Tesla's chair made $198m selling stock as profit fell

Robyn Denholm sold Tesla stock in recent months while Elon Musk, the chief executive she oversees, worked for President Trump and alienated many car buyers, write Aaron Krolick, Rebecca Elliott and Jack Ewing from New York

- Aaron Krolick, Rebecca Elliott and Jack Ewing

n March, after a steep decline in Tesla’s share price, Elon Musk told employees, “Hang on to your stock.” The chair of Tesla’s board, Robyn Denholm, has not heeded his advice.

Ms Denholm has made $198 million in the past six months selling Tesla stock that she earned for serving on the board, according to a New York Times analysis of securities filings.

That brings her total profit on the sale of Tesla stock to more than $530 million since becoming the board’s leader in late 2018, far more than her peers have made at the most valuable US companies during that time, the analysis shows.

The share sales raise questions about Ms Denholm's confidence in Tesla’s prospects. Her most recent sales, executed under a prearranged trading plan filed last summer, came as Mr Musk, the company’s chief executive, took a time-consuming role in the Trump administration. Tesla's car sales have plunged partly because Mr Musk’s political activities have turned off some car buyers. The company’s quarterly profit fell in the first three months of 2025 to its lowest level in four years.

Ms Denholm earned the right to buy those shares, what are known as stock options, for serving on the board, a part-time position. Tesla granted the options between 2014 and 2020, and its share price has soared since then, giving Ms Denholm the right to buy shares for a lot less than their current price. Last week, for example, she bought more than 112,000 shares for $24.73 apiece and sold them the same day for more than $270.

"To dump her stock, it doesn’t send a message that this is a board chair who is invested in the future of the company," said the New York City comptroller, Brad Lander, who oversees the city’s five public pension funds. As of March, those funds held more than three million Tesla shares, valued at the time at roughly $817 million.