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Elon Musk Lets Twitter Followers Decide If He Should Sell $25 Billion Worth Of Tesla Stock

Elon Musk Lets Twitter Followers Decide If He Should Sell $25 Billion Worth Of Tesla Stock

The sale could be worth $25 billion and will be decided at 8pm tonight

Anonymous

Anonymous

World's richest man Elon Musk is giving Twitter users the power to decide whether he should sell a whopping 10% of his Tesla stock through a Twitter poll.

The Tesla founder claimed the decision is 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.

Musk tweeted around 8pm last night: "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?

"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."

Yahoo Finance estimates Tesla's worth at $1.22 trillion and Musk owns just over 20% of Tesla shares, putting over $25 billion at the power of Twitter users.

At the time of writing Musk's poll had received over 2.75 million votes with 56.6% in favour of the sale and 43.4% in opposition.

Investopedia defines an unrealised gain as potential profit resulting from an investment that exists on paper.

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

Twitter users still have the chance to support or oppose the sale as the poll ends at around 8pm tonight.

Some Twitter users criticised Musk for manipulating the stock market by being reckless with his massive investments.

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

Alamy

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."

Other Twitter users questioned the decision and wanted to know how Musk would reinvest the money.

Investment advisor and CEO Ross Gerber said: "What will you reinvest the after tax capital?"

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

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Topics: elon musk, US News