Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc, polled his 62.5 million Twitter followers on Saturday to see if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
The world’s wealthiest man earlier stated that he may face a “huge” tax burden this year due to the fact that he must execute a big number of stock options that will mature next year.
“Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock,” Musk said on Twitter on Saturday.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he said, referring to a “billionaires` tax” proposed by Democrats.
Musk has slammed the proposal, which would touch 700 billionaires and impose taxes on long-term capital gains on tradable assets, regardless of whether they are sold.
Musk stated that he will follow the poll’s results regardless of the outcome.
In the seven hours after he released the survey, it drew nearly 2 million responses, with 55 percent of respondents approving the idea to sell the shares. On Sunday, the voting will close around 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT).
Musk’s investment in Tesla was around 170.5 million shares as of June 30, and selling 10% of his stock would be worth close to $21 billion based on Friday’s closing price.
`STOCKS GO DOWN`
According to a Tesla filing, Musk has an option to buy 22.86 million shares at $6.24 apiece that expires on Aug. 13 next year. On Friday, Tesla’s closing price was $1,222.09.
Musk stated in September that he expects to pay taxes on more than half of the earnings he would generate from exercising options. He also ruled out the notion of taking out loans using his Tesla stock as collateral. “Stocks do not always rise in value. They plummet, “At the code conference, he stated.
After Tesla stock hit a record high in late October, certain Tesla board members, notably his brother Kimbal Musk, sold huge amounts of stock.
Musk recently stated on Twitter that he would donate $6 billion in Tesla stock to the World Food Program (WFP) if the organisation gave greater information about how it used its funds.
In the financial sector, his tweet raised some eyebrows.
“We are witnessing the Twitter masses deciding the outcome of a $25B coin flip,” Venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya wrote on Twitter.
“Looking forward to the day when the richest person in the world paying some tax does not depend on a Twitter poll,” Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman tweeted.
Musk got into trouble with a tweet about taking Tesla private in 2018.
