Tesla files to sell $500 million in stock and Elon Musk wants some

Tesla has filed to sell 2.1 million shares of common stock - worth around $500 million - and CEO Elon Musk wants some.

In a filing on Thursday, Tesla said Musk is "has indicated his preliminary interest" in buying $20 million of this offering, or around 84,000 shares.

Tesla said in its filing that it plans to use proceeds from this offering to build out its supercharger network and for development of its Gigafactory, which Tesla is building in Nevada and at which it plans to build the lithium-ion batteries that power its cars and home-powering batteries.

In pre-market trade on Thursday, Tesla shares were up about 1.7%.

Year-to-date Tesla shares are up about 7% and down about 4% over the last 12 months.

Shares of a company selling additional stock often fall after the offering because putting additional shares into the market decreases earnings per share as the denominator in this calculation - profit divided by shares outstanding - gets larger.

Tesla shareholders, however, have seemed willing to go along with almost anything the company does over the last several years, and with Elon Musk putting $20 million of his own dollars into this offering, the market has so far responded positively.