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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla’s electric car, sold about $5 billion worth of Tesla stock after the results of the Twitter vote.
Earlier, he launched a poll on social media Twitter asking if the 63 million followers who followed him on Twitter would support him in selling 10% of Tesla’s stock.
The majority of people on Twitter voted for him to sell the stock. As a result, Tesla’s share price fell 16% within two days, and then it partially stabilized.
But it is not clear whether Musk’s sale of his holdings is directly related to the Twitter vote, and it is also unclear whether he will continue to sell his holdings.
Tesla is the world‘s most valuable automaker with a share price of more than $1 trillion.
Master’s trust sold approximately 3.6 million shares, valued at approximately US$4 billion.
According to records obtained by US securities regulators, Musk also exercised stock options to purchase 2.2 million shares and then sold 934,000 shares for approximately $1.1 billion.
The documents show that about one-fifth of the shares were sold according to a pre-arranged trading plan in September, which was arranged before Musk’s Twitter vote.
However, regulatory documents show that there is no pre-planned plan for the sale of the remaining shares.
Twitter vote
Last week, Musk posted on Twitter asking fans to vote whether he should sell some Tesla shares for tax.
“Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about unrealized gains as a means of tax avoidance, so I propose to sell 10% of Tesla’s stock.”
“Regardless of the result, I will abide by the voting result.”
A total of more than 3.5 million people voted, and nearly 58% were in favor of the sale.
After the voting results appeared, Musk has not publicly commented on the voting results, nor has he stated how and when he will sell his shares.
Levy a tax on the rich?
Musk has previously stated that he did not receive cash or bonuses from Tesla, “I only have stocks, so the only way to pay personal income tax is to sell stocks for cash.”
According to the plan proposed by the US Democrats in the Senate, billionaires can be taxed on their “unrealized gains” when their stock prices rise, even if they have not sold any stocks.
It is believed that the proposed tax on capital gains may affect some 700 billionaires in the United States regardless of whether the assets are sold. Critics point out that the value of assets does not always rise, and sometimes falls.
Rich people donate money
In addition to the proposed taxation of “unrealized gains”, many people believe that the world‘s top rich should bear more responsibility for global issues such as poverty, hunger, and climate change.
Earlier, a statement by the head of the United Nations World Food Program stated that Musk could help solve the world‘s hunger problem by spending only 2% of his wealth.
In response to this, Musk said that as long as the United Nations World Food Program can clearly explain how the US$6 billion will solve the problem of world hunger, he is willing to donate money.
Musk is one of the richest people in the world, and his personal wealth is estimated to exceed $280 billion.
Musk’s road to becoming the world‘s richest man