WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department says it has received $11.7 billion from the sale of 358.5 million shares of General Motors stock.

Treasury announced that the net proceeds from the GM stock sold last week were delivered on Tuesday. Treasury officials said that the government could receive an additional $1.8 billion assuming the underwriters exercise options to purchase an additional 53.8 million shares of GM common stock within 30 days of the initial stock offering.

The government put $49.5 billion into GM as part of its bailout of the automaker.

In addition, Treasury said it will receive another $2.1 billion from GM when the automaker repurchases preferred stock that was issued under the government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program– a sale slated for December.

TARP was used to stabilize the financial system and prop up auto companies GM and Chrysler and insurance giant American International Group.

“General Motors’ successful initial public offering is another important milestone in our efforts to recover TARP funds on behalf of the American taxpayer,” Tim Massad, Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for the bailout program, said in a statement.

With the receipt of the $11.7 billion from last week’s sale of GM stock, Treasury said that a total of $252.1 billion has been returned to taxpayers from the TARP program.

Republicans have criticized the TARP program as an example of a bloated federal government, but the Obama administration contends that the TARP program, developed during the Bush administration, was critical to stabilizing the financial system and keeping the recession from being even more severe.