Elon Musk's brother sold $8 million of Tesla stock in a single day this month

• Kimbal Musk cashed out $8 million of Tesla stock in one day.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk's brother made the sales as part of a set trading schedule.
• The Tesla director offset his sales by exercising stock options to buy more shares.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.

  ---

Elon Musk's brother sold $8 million of Tesla stock in a single day this month, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Kimbal Musk disposed of 12,000 shares, or 2% of his total stake in the electric-vehicle company.

The Tesla chief's younger brother sold the shares on April 1 as part of a trading plan agreed last May, the filing shows. Scheduled sales have gained popularity in recent years, as they allow insiders to realize returns on their investments without scaring investors into thinking the stock is overvalued or bad news is coming.

Kimbal Musk offset his sales by exercising stock options the same day, allowing him to buy 12,000 Tesla shares for about $77 each - a total cost of $890,000.

Last week, Kimbal Musk told Bloomberg Markets that the future of Tesla was "very bright" and that he was excited for what was to come. He also said that the broader energy sector would be a big part of this.

Over the past year, Tesla's stock price has soared by almost 600%. It reached a record high of over $883 earlier this year, but crashed to about $560 in early March. The stock has rebounded to trade around $690.

In the first quarter of 2021, a record-breaking 184,800 Teslas were delivered and almost as many were produced, despite continued supply-chain issues linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a clean-energy company, Tesla is benefiting from booms in both the tech and sustainability sectors. Just last week, President Biden announced the first part of his infrastructure plan, which promises to support electric-vehicle production and usage in the US.

Tesla will benefit from this and be able to ride the "green tidal wave" initiated by Biden's speech last week, Dan Ives and Strecker Backe, analysts at Wedbush, said on Monday. They upgraded Tesla to "outperform" and increased their price target to $1000.