ap photo A sign bearing the company logo outside a Tesla store in Cherry Creek Mall in Denver in 2019. Tesla is looking to split its stock so that the electric vehicle maker can pay a dividend to its shareholders.

NEW YORK — Shares of Tesla jumped at the opening bell Monday after the electric car maker announced its second stock split in less than two years.

The company said in a regulatory filing, and also in a tweet, that it plans to make a request at an upcoming annual shareholders meeting to increase its number of authorized shares so that it can split the stock in the form of a dividend.

It did not say when a split would occur or the ratio of such a stock split, but it would follow similar maneuvers by a trio of tech companies that have seen their shares soar in recent months.

Tesla’s shares are up more than 60 percent over the past year, with each costing more than $1,000.

And the company is growing. CEO Elon Musk opened Tesla’s first European factory last week, a ” Gigafactory ” in Germany that will employ 12,000 people and produce 500,000 vehicles a year.

“Given the stock’s meteoric run its not a surprise that Musk & Co. are heading down the path of another stock split especially with robust EV demand and the build-outs of the flagship Berlin and Austin Giga factories now on a glide path, said Dan Ives, who follows Tesla for Wedbush.

A stock split does would change the price-per-stock, but not the overall value of those holdings. It can push up the price of a company’s stock, at least temporarily, and the announcement did just that on Monday.

Shares continued to rise after the opening bell, almost 8 percent, or $77.22, to $1,087.86.

Tesla Inc. said that its board has greenlighted the proposal, but that the dividend is contingent on final board approval.