[tcoppi]

TSLA is approximately 66% owned by institutional investors(investment banks, funds of any sort(including active and index funds that may be in 401(k)s). That leaves ~30% of the shares controlled by individuals, which is fairly typical.

[jfoutz]

That's sort of a weird way of looking at it. Don't Musk and Ahuja own like 10% of the shares? Is there an easy way to get non-insider, non-institutional numbers?

[tcoppi]

As of February Elon owns 22%. He and other board members/early investors are individuals so I don't see how it is weird to include them, though.

[jfoutz]

Ah, OP's assertion was the price is crazy from retail investors, which i assume would be non-institutional, non-insiders. It's impressive that a few % of owners can double the share price. Unless, they meant Musk was buying shares at $350+

[tcoppi]

I mean, I don't think that is what is happening right now, but you might be surprised what it takes to move a market sometimes. The Flash Crash[1] was caused by a single individual. Granted he was playing with futures and you can get some insane leverage with a modest account there, but it is within the ability of a couple of individuals with six-figure accounts to make some well placed bets and move a market significantly.

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash#Evidence_of_m...

[consz]

How much faith do you have in the statement that the flash crash was actually caused by a single individual?

[tcoppi]

He definitely set off a chain of events that caused automated market makers to re-evaluate their idea of a fair market value rapidly in the downward direction, and it cascaded from there.

[gertef]

Individuals who are company insiders or own a substantial portion of shares, are of a different character from small outsiders.

[vonmoltke]

Musk owns ~20.5% of the outstanding shares. Ahuja does not appear to own an appreciable number (directly, at least).