November 8, 2021
Tesla CEO Elon Musk asked his 62.5 million Twitter followers on Saturday whether he should sell 10 per cent of his company’s shares.
The world’s richest person could face a “massive” tax burden this year and is forced to exercise a large number of stock options that mature next year.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he said, attributing this to a “billionaires’ tax” proposed by Democrats.
Musk criticized the proposal, which would affect 700 billionaires and impose taxes on long-term capital gains on tradable assets, regardless of whether they have been sold.
Musk said he would abide by the survey’s findings no matter what.
The survey received 2 million responses within seven hours after the post went public, with 55% of respondents approving of the sale of shares, which ended at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Musk’s shares in Tesla stood at 170.5 million shares as of June 30 and a sale of 10% of his stock would be worth $21 billion after market close on Friday.
For more information, you may view the original story in Reuters.
