Musk has pledged $44 billion of Tesla shares for loans, which will be restricted by the board of directors in the future.

Beijing, April 7 (Xinhua) Tesla's shareholder power of attorney filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday showed that in order to obtain personal loans, its CEO Elon Musk (Elon Musk) has pledged Tesla shares worth 44 billion US dollars (currently about 302.72 billion yuan). In the future, he will be restricted by Tesla's new policy.

Mr Musk holds about 411 million Tesla shares, of which 238.4 million were pledged to obtain personal loans, according to regulatory documents. Based on Tesla's closing price of $185.06 on Thursday, the pledged shares are worth about $44 billion. Under Tesla's previous policy, Musk could theoretically borrow as much as $11 billion (currently about 75.68 billion yuan).

On Thursday, Tesla's board of directors revised its policy on stock pledge, specifically limiting the total amount of loans that Mr Musk can use as collateral for his shares to between $3.5 billion (currently about Rmb24.08 billion) or the lower 25 per cent of the stock value. Mr Musk has not been subject to such restrictions before. The new policy also reduces the limit on which Tesla directors and executives, with the exception of Mr Musk, can borrow with pledged shares, from 25 per cent of the previous stock value to 15 per cent.

"in order to reduce the risk of being forced to sell pledged shares, the board of directors has formulated a policy to restrict our directors and executives from pledging Tesla shares." Tesla said in the document. The number of pledged shares "does not indicate the extent to which these stocks may actually borrow as of this date, which may be much lower than the value of the pledged shares," the company said in its power of attorney.