Majority Of People Vote For Elon Musk To Sell His Tesla Stock

A majority of people have voted for Elon Musk to sell his Tesla stock.

The tech billionaire asked his followers on Twitter what he should do with his Tesla shares over the weekend and made the bold proposal to just auction the lot off.

Writing on Twitter, he said: "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?"

After putting up a poll on social media, the results are finally in: 57.9 per cent of people reckon he should sell the shares.

The announcement has seen the price of Tesla shares dip slightly and Musk hasn't yet spoken about how the massive poll went.

More than 3.5 million people took part in the survey and Musk confirmed he would 'abide' by whatever the result was.

"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 added.

The Tesla founder claimed the decision proves his willingness to pay tax as he receives no official salary or bonus.

This comes following a ProPublica report in June this year revealing how the richest people on earth avoid paying taxes.

Yahoo Finance estimates Tesla's worth at $1.22 trillion and Musk owns just over 20% of Tesla shares. This means Musk's Twitter poll put more than $25 billion in the hands of social media users.

The US government does not tax stocks and securities until the owner sells them, when they are 'realised'.

However, the proposal to sell off his stock wasn't well received by some people.

Cory Wijnhamer said: "You do realize that Tesla stock will now tank on Monday because of this, thus ending the awesome run the stock has made the last month.

"Posts like this is taking money out of the pockets of the people who have believed in you and your company the most."

Samantha Joel added: "Stop manipulating the stock market with your fame and do something prosocial with your wealth."

DCinvestor said: "Why not just sell a small % of your stock each year like many CEOs? Why 10% in one go?"

It's unclear when Musk will be forced to sell his shares, but one thing is clear: they will be sold as he is a man of his word.

Topics: tesla, elon musk, News

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

@stewartperrie