LORDSTOWN — The founder and former chief executive of Lordstown Motors Corp. has sold more than $54 million of the stock he owns in the electric-vehicle startup since abruptly leaving the company amid controversy last year.

The latest sell-off by Steve Burns was more than 3.9 million shares of common stock worth about $6.9 million, according to a form filed Tuesday evening with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The form shows the transactions happened over a three-day period: 2.1 million shares Friday at a weighted average price of $1.85 per share; 650,000 shares Monday at a weighted average price of $1.73 per share; and more than 1.1 million shares Tuesday at a weighted average price of $1.70 per share.

The latest transactions happened within days after Burns shed more than 4.7 million shares for more than $9.2 million.

Since leaving the company last year, Burns has sold more than 19.5 million shares of his Lordstown Motors stock in multiple transactions.

He was awarded 46.3 million shares of common stock in the company when it merged with New York-based DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., a special purpose acquisition, or “blank-check” company in August 2020 to become a publicly traded company.

Burns still owns more than 26.6 million shares, according to the regulatory document.

He founded the company in 2019 to mass produce electric work trucks and worked out an agreement with General Motors to purchase its former Lordstown small car assembly plant to manufacture the vehicles for just $20 million.

Burns resigned in June 2021 without a stated reason by Lordstown Motors, but his departure was in sync with an admission by the company that statements regarding preorders for the company’s first vehicle, the Endurance, were inaccurate.

Under the new leadership, the company sold the plant to global electronics and technology firm Foxconn for $230 million earlier this year and has shifted away from manufacturing toward engineering and developing electric vehicles.

The Endurance is being produced in limited numbers by Foxconn.

Lordstown Motors stock closed trading Wednesday on the Nasdaq exchange at $1.62 per share, down 5.2 percent.