Elon Musk sells around 900,000 Tesla shares worth $1.1 billion after Twitter poll

After making a promise on Twitter, Elon Musk has sold around 900,000 shares, worth over $1 billion, of his electric car maker Tesla’s stock, according to The Associated Press. The SpaceX CEO sold these shares on Wednesday, 10 November, in part to satisfy tax obligations related to an exercise of stock options. It is to mention that even after selling a block of Tesla shares, Musk still holds more than 170 million shares. 

The Tesla sales will now cover all tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September. As per the news agency, the transactions were reported “automatically effected” as part of the trading plan adopted on 14 September to sell options that expire next year. It is to mention that Musk exercised options to buy just over 2.1 million shares for $6.24 each. On Wednesday, the company’s stock closed at $1,067.95 per share. 

Before the sale, Musk had asked his 62.5 million Twitter followers to vote in a poll, telling them that their vote would determine the future of his Tesla holdings. More than 3.5 million Twitter users voted in the poll, launched by Musk on Saturday, with a majority voting in favour of the share sale. Following the social media poll, shares of Tesla plunged Monday by about 3%, however, it rebounded back on Wednesday. 

‘Billionaires Income Tax’ proposal 

The latest development comes in response to US President Joe Biden’s recently proposed Democratic plan to levy the taxes on the top billionaires, including Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and 700 others. The proposal would affect people who either have an income of over $100 million for at least three years in a row or have assets worth over $1 billion. 

The domestic policy seeks to implement "billionaire tax”, an estimated 23.8% tax rate on the long-term capital gains on tradable assets for the big American tech giants. For scenarios that include non-tradeable assets, like real estate, once taxpayers sell their assets, they could pay both regular capital gains taxes and an additional charge. Meanwhile, Musk has previously slammed the policy and claimed that it would slowly start targeting other taxpayers later on. 

(Image: AP/Shutterstock)