Richard Branson sells $300 million in Virgin Galactic stock after rocket ride

Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson sold more than 10 million shares of his space-tourism company earlier this week, just one month after enjoying his own personal, televised suborbital rocket ride viewed by millions of people on planet Earth.

Branson began selling the shares through Virgin Group Investments on Tuesday and finished the transactions late Thursday, a regulatory filing shows. All told, the shares were worth about $300 million. The sale marks the third time Branson has offloaded the stock of money-losing Virgin Galactic, having sold $500 million in shares in May 2020 and another $150 million in April. Virgin Galactic's July 11 flight carried Branson, two pilots and three company employees above the 50-mile-high altitude recognized by the FAA and NASA as the boundary between space and the discernible atmosphere. The company's next flight is scheduled for late September and will carry a group of Italian Air Force personnel.