Tesla CEO Elon Musk Sells $5 Billion Worth of Tesla Stocks
Elon Musk has sold around $5bn (£3.7bn) of shares in the electric carmaker.
Tesla CEO, Elon Musk just sold $5 billion worth of Tesla stocks after a decision taken by users on Twitter. This happened a few days after the billionaire created a poll on Twitter, letting his 63 million followers decide the fate of 10% of his Tesla stocks.
Elon Musk sells Tesla stocks
Ever since the poll was in favour of Elon Musk selling his stocks, the shares of Tesla reduce by 16% within two days. However, recently on Wednesday, they gained some ground again.
Today, Tesla is valued at a total of $1 trillion, making it the most valuable carmaker in the world. And since Elon Musk sold about 3.6 million shares in the company, the total stocks were worth $4 billion approximately.
Reports say that the billionaire sold 934000 additional Tesla stocks for $1.1 Billion after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares, according to filings with the US stock market regulator.
Though, not all of his followers were in favour of him selling his Tesla stocks. Earlier on Wednesday when Elon Musk created the poll, about 58% of people responded in favour.
However, since it was the majority, Elon Musk decided to go on with what was promised. Regarding this, he tweeted, “Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock … I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.”
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
Overall, 3.5 million voters took part in the poll. Furthermore, Elon Musk also mentioned that Tesla does not pay him anything in cash. So, he mentioned that for him, he can only pay the taxes by selling his stock.
That is because making such transactions would result in income taxes that are settled immediately. As the richest person in the world now, Elon Musk has a total net worth estimated around $280 billion.
However, documents showed that the sale of about a fifth of the shares was made based on a pre-arranged trading plan that was set up in September, long before Mr Musk’s tweets over the weekend about selling some of his shares.
The regulatory filings also showed that the sale of the remainder of the shares had not been scheduled.
Also, this is not the first time the CEO has sold his Tesla stocks. For instance, back in 2016, Elon Musk exercised his option to sell his stocks to cover his income tax which was close to $600 million.
On a side note, Tesla is not the only company in which Musk currently holds shares. A few billion out of his fortune of more than $280 billion would certainly not hurt him.
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