Nearly 58 per cent of Elon Musk’s followers who participated in his Twitter poll have told him to sell 10 per cent of his stock (worth $24 billion) in the electric car company, ostensibly to pay more tax.
The world’s wealthiest person had tweeted out a poll over the last weekend, asking his Twitter followers whether he should sell Tesla stock in order to pay more tax.
While 57.9 per cent of more than 3.5 million participants had voted “yes,” 42.1 per cent voted “no”.
“Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 per cent of my Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted.
In a subsequent tweet on Sunday, he added: “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 further tweeted.
Musk had been a vocal critic of a proposal to tax unrealised gains on publicly traded assets in the US.
US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) responded to Musk: “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.”
Currently, 10 per cent of Musk’s stake in Tesla is worth around $24 billion, which he is going to have to pay taxes on.
If Musk was to sell that many Tesla stocks, it would likely have a significant negative impact on the price, media reports said.