Elon Musk sells $1.1 billion in Tesla shares to pay taxes after Twitter poll
Thursday, 11 November 2021 (12:30 IST)
Elon Musk has sold about 900,000 shares of the electric carmaker's stock, netting over $1.1 billion (€960 million), to pay tax obligations for stock options. Earlier in the week, his trust sold nearly 3.6 million shares in Tesla, worth around $4 billion,
He conducted a poll on Twitter asking users whether he should sell 10% of his stocks, saying he would follow the results of the poll. Following the survey, Tesla's share price plunged Monday, meaning the 50-year-old Musk sold his stock at a lower price than if he had sold it before his tweet, losing tens of millions of dollars in unrealized profit.
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Tesla does not pay him a cash salary. According to Forbes magazine, Musk is the world's wealthiest man, with a net worth of around $282 billion, most of it in Tesla stock.
He exercised options to buy just over 2.1 million shares for $6.24 each. The company's stock closed Wednesday at $1,067.95 per share. Musk has more than 20 million additional stock options that are due to expire in August.
The Twitter poll ended with 58% of more than 3.5 million votes calling for him to sell the shares. Musk's tweet was based on a proposal by some US Democrats pushing billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks goes up, even if they don't sell their shares.
