A twitter poll by Elon Musk that attracted more than 3.5 million votes has decided that he should sell 10% of his Tesla, the electric carmaker, stock.
On November 6th, Elon Musk tweeted “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?” and added a poll to his tweet.
Musk added that he “will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.” After 3.5 million votes, twitter decided that he should sell it with Yes seeing 57.9% of all votes.
The 10% stock that Musk is proposing to sell is valued at around $21 billion and helps to make Musk one of the richest men on the planet.
Tesla’s shares have fallen dramatically by around 9% early Monday morning as investors prepare for Elon Musk to sell 10% of his shares.
This question comes after US Senate Democrats have launched a proposal to tax billionaires’ stocks and other tradeable assets. They want to do this in help finance Joe Biden’s social spending agenda.
This proposal would also close a loophole that meant many of the richest people in America do not have to pay income tax. As Musk noted in his own tweets he does not take a salary or bonus from any of his companies meaning he has no earnings on which to pay income tax.
Under the new bill, billionaires would be taxed on what they have called “unrealised gains” which includes when share prices go up dramatically even if the billionaire does not sell any stock, as happened with Elon and Tesla.
It is thought that this could affect around 700 billionaires in the US that have not had to pay income taxes otherwise.
If Musk was to sell the 10% Tesla stock this would leave him with a huge tax bill, and would mean he would not be using “unrealised gains” as a means of tax avoidance.
Elon Musk, who is known for his outlandish social media presence, has raised some eyebrows after this most recent twitter poll. Some on Twitter do not believe he will sell the stock, others thinking there may be an ulterior motive to his actions.
US Senator Ron Wyden replied to Musk’s tweet stating “Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll. It’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax.”
In recent months, Musk has told the UN World Food Programme (WFP), who claimed that 2% of Musk’s wealth could solve world hunger, that he would sell $6 billion of Tesla Stock if the WFP could prove exactly how $6 billion would solve world hunger.
