Elon Musk

Elon Musk

When Tesla (Nasdaq:TSLA) finally listed on Nasdaq on Tuesday its share price went from $17 up to $23.89 at the end of trading, a gain of almost 41 percent in just one day alone. Scores of profit takers would have been rejoicing; among them Tesla CEO Elon Musk who managed to walk away with a cool $24 million after selling some of his own shares in the company.

The gain should offer some solace for Musk who has reportedly sunk hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money into Tesla. As most would know, Musk made about $300 million selling PayPal and Zip2 several years back but the Tesla CEO is also crying poor as he undergoes divorce proceedings with his estranged wife Justine Musk.

Tesla itself has made about $226 million through its IPO, where investors clamored for a total of 13.3 million shares, pushing the price beyond the expected $14 to $16 range. The results were quite impressive for a company that has never made a profit before and has in fact lost more than $260.7 million since its inception seven years ago.

And Musk still has plenty of shares in the company. In fact, he still has 26.9 million remaining Tesla shares valued at about $641 million.

[Detroit Free Press]