Google co-founder Sergey Brin could make a $100 million profit selling shares of Tesla after he apparently decided to withdraw his investments from Elon Musk’s company due to an alleged affair between Musk and his wife , Nicole Shanahan.
Musk on Sunday denied a Wall Street Journal report that claimed his friendship with Brin was severed after he and Shanahan had a brief fling while she was separated from Brin late last year.
According to the Journal, Brin was so angered by the affair that he urged her to file for divorce from Shanahan.
Brin also reportedly told his financial investors to divest all of his stakes in entities run by Musk, including electric car maker Tesla.
According to Business Insider, Brin was an early investor in Tesla. In 2006, he helped the company raise $40 million, although it was unclear how much he invested at the time.
Two years later, Brin invested another $500,000 in another $40 million fundraiser.
That amount of money was “enough to keep the lights on a bit longer,” according to Hamish McKenzie, author of “Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution.”
Brin’s name does not appear in Tesla’s SEC filings, indicating that his stake in the company is no more than 5%.
It is unclear whether he sold his stake in the company when it went public in 2010.
At a conservative estimate, Brin’s stake in Tesla is at least $500,000. If he sold it today, it would be well over $100 million.
At the time of Tesla’s IPO in June 2010, its stock price was around $4 per share.
On Monday morning, Tesla stock was trading north of $811 per share.
Musk, 51, insisted claims of a fling with his friend’s ex-wife Shanahan were ‘total bs’ – even joking, ‘I haven’t even had sex for ages (sigh).”
The world’s richest man also sent the Post a photo showing him partying with Brin, 48, who was believed to have cooled their bromance after the alleged betrayal.
“Took this photo only two hours ago,” Musk told The Post of the photo of himself laughing while rubbing shoulders with his fellow billionaire.
The Tesla mogul has gotten serious in strongly denying the widely publicized Wall Street Journal report that claimed a December fling was behind Brin’s divorce.
“Nicole and Sergey’s divorce has absolutely nothing to do with me,” Musk insisted via email.
“I’m sure Nicole and Sergey would confirm that. I talked to Sergey and Nicole about it and they say the story didn’t come from them, so [it] must be a broken phone case, two or three layers removed,” he said.