On Wednesday, Elon Musk sold about 900 000 Tesla shares, netting over $1.1 billion to pay tax obligations for stock options. This follows after he conducted a poll on Twitter asking users if he should sell 10% of his stocks, saying he would follow the results of the poll.
His trust also sold almost 3.6 million shares in Tesla, worth about $4 billion, according to filings with the US stock market regulator.
The filings showed that the sale of about a fifth of the shares was made based on a pre-arranged trading plan set up in September, long before the poll posted over the weekend. However, the filings also showed that the sale of the remainder of the shares had not been scheduled.
On Saturday, Mr Musk posted a Twitter poll asking his followers to vote on whether he should sell part of his stake in Tesla to meet his tax obligations.
“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,” he Tweeted.
The poll attracted more than 3.5 million votes, with nearly 58% voting in favour of the share sale.
Mr Musk also highlighted that he is not paid in cash by Tesla: “I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”
The company’s shares fell by around 16% in the two days after the poll came out in favour of him selling shares, before regaining some ground on Wednesday.
Mr Musk is the world’s richest person, with a personal fortune estimated to be more than $280bn.
Sources: BBC, MSN
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