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07/11/2021

Musk Conducts Poll On Twitter About Selling Or Not Selling 10% Of His Tesla Stock




Musk Conducts Poll On Twitter About Selling Or Not Selling 10% Of His Tesla Stock
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Inc, resorted to asking his 62.5 million followers on Twitter, through a poll, about whether he should sell off 10 per cent of the stocks in Tesla that he owns.
 
Musk, who is currently the wealthiest person in the world, has said earlier that a "massive" tax bill could be thrown at him this year since he will be required to execute a big number of stock options that will come due next year.
 
"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," Musk said on Twitter on Saturday.
 
"Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," he said, referring to a "billionaires' tax" proposed by Democrats.
 
Musk has blasted the idea, which would impact about 700 billionaires by the government taxing long-term capital gains made by them on tradable assets irrespective of such assets are being sold or not.
 
Regardless of the outcome, the poll's results will be followed by him, Musk stated.
 
In the seven hours since he posted the poll on Twitter, it attracted more than 2 million replies, and 55 per cent of respondents supported Musk’s plan of selling his shares. The poll will close at 3 p.m. ET (2000 GMT) on Sunday.
 
As of June 30, Musk held a total of about 170.5 million shares in his electric vehicle-making firm Tesla, according to reports, and based on Friday's closing price of Tesla’s shares, selling of 10 per cent of his stock would be equivalent to about $21 billion in wealth. 
 
According to a regulatory filing by Tesla, an option to purchase 22.86 million shares at $6.24 a share that expires on August 13, next year is available to Musk. On Friday, the closing price of Tesla’s share was $1,222.09.
 
Musk stated in September that he expects to pay taxes on more than half of the earnings he would generate from exercising options. He also ruled out the notion of taking out loans with his Tesla stock as collateral.
 
"Stocks don't always go up. They go down," he said at the Code conference.
 
After Tesla stocks reached a record high in late October, a number of board members of Tesla, notably his brother Kimbal Musk, sold huge amounts of stock.
 
Musk plans to sell $6 billion in Tesla stock and give the proceeds to the World Food Program (WFP) in exchange for the organization disclosing more information about how its funds were used, Musk recently stated on Twitter.
 
His tweet had raised some eyebrows in the financial world.
 
"We are witnessing the Twitter masses deciding the outcome of a $25B coin flip," Venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya wrote on Twitter.
 
"Looking forward to the day when the richest person in the world paying some tax does not depend on a Twitter poll," Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman tweeted.
 
In 2018, Musk had tweeted about taking Tesla private which landed him in trouble.
 
(Source:www.theguardian.com)

Christopher J. Mitchell

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