When Elon Musk went on Twitter to ask followers if he should sell 10 per cent of his Tesla shares, the answer was a resounding “yes”.
On Sunday (Nov 7), entrepreneur and business magnate Elon Musk created a Twitter poll asking the public if he should sell shares from his Tesla stock.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” he asked.
As of writing, 57.9 per cent of the 3.5 million votes said yes.
In a follow-up tweet, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla said, “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,” he explained.
Mr Musk, however, did not specify directly how the 10 per cent would be used to pay taxes.
It was reported that he had not accepted his Tesla salary in years. He holds about 170.5 million Tesla shares as of June 2021, with a value of approximately $208.3 billion (S$281.5 billion) as of Friday’s Nov 5) market close.
A 10 per cent sale of shares would amount to about $21 billion.
Mr Musk, who is by far the richest person on Bloomberg’s index tracking of the world’s wealthiest people, saw his net worth balloon to $335 billion in 2021 as Tesla stocks blew up.
Meanwhile, an analysis published by ProPublica in June showed that centibillionaires like Mr Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos haven’t paid anything in income taxes in recent years.
Following Mr Musk’s poll, United States Democrat and chair of the Senate finance committee Ron Wyden denounced the statement, calling it a stunt.
“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,” said Mr Wyden, who is the man behind the proposed billionaire’s tax.
“The billionaire’s income tax would ensure billionaires pay tax every year, just like working Americans. No working person in America thinks it’s right that they pay their taxes and billionaires don’t,” said Mr Wyden in a Guardian report.
“There are two tax codes in America. The first is mandatory for workers who pay taxes out of every paycheck. The second is voluntary for billionaires who defer paying taxes for years, if not indefinitely,” he explained. /TISG
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Do you support this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
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