(Bloomberg) — Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison has emerged as the second-biggest individual investor in Tesla Inc. with a holding worth $1 billion in the electric carmaker.
His stake was confirmed in a filing Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The disclosure came after Ellison, a close friend of Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and a fellow larger-than-life technology titan, became a director in December.
Ellison, 74, indirectly owns 3 million Tesla shares through the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust, according to the filing. The 1.75 percent stake makes him the second-largest disclosed individual shareholder after Musk, who owns about a fifth of the company, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla announced Ellison’s appointment to the board in December.
Ellison’s revelation comes as Tesla emerges from a rough patch. It’s now one of the most valuable car companies in the world, turning out more than 4,700 Model 3s each week after struggling a year ago to get just a few hundred off assembly lines. Musk also courted controversy in 2018, with the SEC ordering greater board oversight following the CEO’s claims in August of having funding and investor support for a buyout.
Punishment
The SEC moved to punish Tesla and Musk because it alleged he committed fraud by tweeting that he had the “funding secured” to take the company private at $420 a share. The agency said this and other claims the CEO made on Aug. 7 were false and misleading and affected Tesla’s stock. Both he and the company agreed to pay $20 million penalties and added Ellison and human resources expert Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as directors.
Tesla shares were trading 0.9 percent higher at $338 million in the pre-market in New York, giving a market value of $58 billion.
Ellison is the world’s ninth-richest person with a net worth of $51.4 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His stake in Oracle is worth about $39 billion.
Ellison went off-script during an Oracle meeting with analysts in October to announce that he had been building a personal stake in Tesla and that it was his second-largest holding. He criticized how the media had covered Musk, whom he lauded for “landing rockets” and called a close friend.
Tesla’s press office didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment on Ellison’s holding.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Metcalf in New York at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at [email protected], ;Anthony Palazzo at [email protected], Tara Patel, Christopher Jasper
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