A Tesla chairwoman who has been chair of the board since 2018 has sold major stock in the company.

Some pretty big names seem to be doing some pretty big things over at Tesla. Days after Kimbal Musk sold some $28 million of stock, its chairwoman has just sold $33 million.

With continued controversy surrounding Elon Musk and his role in the government, there are calls to boycott Tesla.

The Tesla stock market has been fluctuating since the start of 2025, with Bloomberg reporting that sales have slumped in Europe. The site says that while EV sales have soared by 37% across the EU market, Tesla has dipped by 45%.

Musk has lost over $100 billon since the start of December 2024, and while he’s still the world’s richest man with $354.8 billion, it’s quite the drop.

Denholm has served as the Chair of Tesla since 2018 (Graham Denholm / Stringer / Getty)

To make matters worse, a March 3 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed that Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm has sold $33 million worth of TSLA stock.

Denholm has been chairwoman of the board since 2018 and is one of the few people who actually has oversight over Elon Musk.

She’s now sold 112,390 securities in EV brand, also selling the same amount in February 2025 for a grand total of proceeds equalling around $43.2 million.

Denholm has also exercised stock options to purchase 112,390 shares at a price of $24.73 per share, (equalling $2.78 million). After all of this, Denholm’s direct ownership of Tesla shares stands at 85,000.

Investing.com notes that these sales were part of a pre-established trading plan, although Denholm’s latest sales spree comes after Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja also offloaded 7,000 shares worth $2.8 million in February 2025.

Near the start of 2025, Denholm and other directors were given court approval on a settlement of up to $919 million that demanded they return compensation in order to settle a shareholder complaint. The complaint maintained that members of the board had overpaid themselves during Tesla’s lucrative 2017 to 2020 period.

Denholm previously spoke during Musk’s $56 million pay packet scandal and confirmed her time as chairwoman of the board has made her a cool $280 million.

Looking at the bigger picture, Tesla stocks have leaped by 38.29% in the last year but dropped dramatically by 30.75% in the past month. Given that this is just after President Donald Trump returned to office, critics are sure to be connecting the dots.

In general, there have been complaints about the closeness of Tesla board members to the world’s richest man.

Still, with Elon’s own brother and now the Tesla chairwoman selling million of dollars worth of shares, it’s sure to send rumbles through the stock market.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has received criticism after one former employee claims they were fired from the electric vehicle manufacturer following a LinkedIn post that pushed back against a Nazi-related joke post from its owner.

While it’s typically Elon Musk‘s own posts that end up getting him in trouble, in this particular instance it’s how he has reacted to another’s response that many have found issue with.

Musk remains quick to criticise others on social media when he sees fit, targeting television shows like SNL, multiple major news publications, and even the infamous hacking group Anonymous if he believes that they’ve spoken out of turn.

He’s also a self-professed defender of free speech principles – one of the key reasons why he purchased Twitter, now X, for $44 billion – declaring in the past that “free speech is meaningless unless you allow people you don’t like to say things you don’t like, otherwise it’s irrelevant.”

Musk has been accused of firing an employee after they posted dissenting views (Nora Tam/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)

Recent actions appear to have breached these ideals though, as one now-former Tesla employee has detailed how they were fired from the company for posting a dissenting view of Musk, as reported by The New York Times.

Jared Ottmann was previously a manager and engineer working with Tesla’s battery suppliers, and he outlined his opposition and distaste for Musk’s use of Nazi references in a ‘joke’ post on X.

Musk employed puns involving the names of key Nazi figures such as Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, and Hermann Göring, adding: “Bet you did nazi that coming [laughing emoji].”

Ottmann wrote in response: “Well, we have seen it coming. Elon’s behavior, whatever the underlying motivations, are well documented.

“Starting in 2022 and especially the last week I’ve raised the issue internally multiple times, with managers, HR, legal compliance, investor relations. And while overwhelmingly people offer support, Tesla as a company has remained silent.”

He then continued to outline that “this post by Tesla’s current CEO name drops genocidal a**holes as a joke and has 308,000 likes,” adding that “the silence from Tesla is deafening.”

Ottmann then confirmed last Thursday, February 27, that he had been fired from the company, although he has not offered any further statement in reference to his dismissal.

Musk has been criticized for his far right political leanings, including an alleged Nazi salute (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

Both Musk’s post on X and Ottmann’s firing come at a time when the Tesla CEO is under heavy fire for his far right political leanings.

Not only has been been criticized for his new role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, but he controversially appeared to use a Nazi salute at the presidential inauguration, although he has since denied this.

On top of this, Musk has retained strong support for far right German political party AfD, who themselves have been fined for using Nazi slogans, leading the tech mogul to be criticized by the head of a concentration camp memorial.

This is far from the first time that Musk has been accused of firing employees with dissenting beliefs, and it continues for many to challenge his maintained stance as a ‘defender’ of free speech and First Amendment principles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has begun an appeal process to restore the $56,000,000,000 pay package from the electric car company that he claims was denied in a ‘legal error’.

Despite being undeniably the richest man in the world, Elon Musk continues his crusade for more money by pushing for an ‘unfathomable’ pay package from Tesla that he claims he is rightfully owed.

Awarded all the way back in 2018, this particular pay package resulted in major growth for the electric car manufacturer, as per Reuters, but was ordered to be rescinded by Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick through Delaware law proceedings.

Musk has filed an appeal after his claim to an ‘unfathomable’ Tesla pay package was denied (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Chancellor McCormick indicated that the staggering pay package was “unfathomable” and unfair to shareholders, as directors were ‘beholden’ to Musk as CEO, alongside accusations that Tesla withheld key information from investors before they successfully voted to approve the pay package.

Musk has now launched his own appeal to McCormick’s decision, claiming instead that multiple legal errors were made in the application of the ‘entire fairness’ legal standard.

His legal representatives argue that Chancellor McCormick incorrectly determined that the Tesla directors that approved the pay package were conflicted in their business efforts, and that her assessment of the company’s failure to disclose information was a fault.

What remains critical about this particular pay package is it’s relevance to the current stock price of Tesla, even with a rapidly falling valuation over the past few weeks despite a push of support from President Trump.

The pay package, if successfully awarded, allows Musk to purchase roughly 303 million stock options in the company at around $23 each, which is essentially 10% of the most recent $230.58 closing price on Tuesday (March 11) night, and pales in comparison to the highs of around $492.77 at the end of last year.

Having access to this pay package would significantly increase Musk’s net worth and control over Tesla, despite stock value drops (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Musk’s purchase price if awarded these stocks would be around $6,969,000,000 – which is around just 2.2% of his total current net worth – but if he sold it at that $230.58 closing price he’d earn himself $69,865,740,000, which would boost his net worth by 20%.

Conversely, Musk will likely feel as if he’s lost significant value due to the fact that Tesla is significantly lower than it’s all-time high on the stock market, and if he had indeed held this pay packet at the $492.77 evaluation then his net worth would have almost doubled, increasing by $149,309,310,000.

This is quite a different approach compared to key rival Sam Altman, who currently holds no stock options for OpenAI and only receives a $76,000 yearly wage from the company, and in addition Musk has threatened to move his efforts elsewhere and procure development outside of Tesla if he cannot increase his stake in the company.

There’s plenty of unrest in both Washington and the stock market, with Tesla taking a hit due to the controversial nature of Elon Musk.

The self-appointed ‘First Buddy’ is firmly by the side of President Donald Trump, and while he remains steadfast in his mission to cut $2 trillion from federal spending, many are asking, at what cost?

We’ve seen Tesla stocks tumble in recent weeks, while Musk himself lost $29 billion in a single day.

While he’s still far and away the richest man in the world, a defeated-looking Musk has defended his role as the head of the DOGE.

Those close to Musk have rallied behind Tesla, with Maye Musk calling out a recent spate of vandalism against the EV brand. President Trump has also defended ‘Elon’s baby’ and vowed to buy a brand-new Tesla in an attempt to boost the automobile maker’s popularity.

Trump has vowed to make Tesla ‘great’ again (The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty)

Briefly turning the White House into a Tesla showroom, Trump did his best to boost the brand as he appeared outside the iconic building with Musk and his cars firmly by his side. Saying that those damaging Teslas will be treated as ‘domestic terrorists’, the POTUS went on to refer to Tesla as “a great American company” and promised to put vandals ‘through hell’. Posing in front of several Tesla models and a beefy Cybertruck, Trump was seen holding a price list for all the various models.

When asked about whether those targeting Tesla are ‘domestic terrorists’, Trump continued: “I’ll do it. I’m going to stop them… because they’re harming a great American company. I’ve stuck up for a lot of American companies.

“I do favors for all… when you heard an American company, especially a company like this, applies so many jobs that others are unable to do, when you do that, those people are going to go through a big problem when we catch them.”

Saying that they’ve got a lot of cameras up, Trump claims he already knows who some of these people are: “We’re going to catch up, and they’re bad guys. They’re the same guys that screw around with our schools and universities. The same garbage.

“And no, we’re going to catch them, and let me tell you, you do it to Tesla, and you do it to any company. We’re going to catch you, and you’re going to go through hell.”

Trump has also referred to the Tesla boycott as ‘illegal’, which actually goes against the Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling that the First Amendment protects an American’s right to protest private businesses.

It seems that Tesla’s stocks have had a slight boost in the aftermath of Trump’s sales pitch, although Baird analyst Ben Kallo explained the bigger picture to CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”. Kallo said: “When people’s cars are in jeopardy of being keyed or set on fire out there, even people who support Musk or are indifferent Musk might think twice about buying a Tesla.”

Tesla shares were up 3.8% on March 11, which should help regain some ground from a historic March 10 drop of 15% – giving TSLA its biggest one-day drop since 2020.

We’ll have to wait and see whether this impressive Tesla sales pitch works or things continue going up in (literal) flames for ‘Elon’s baby’.