Elon Musk sold $1.1 billion worth of Tesla shares after voting on Twitter.
Image: Reuters
The Tesla founder seems to want to keep his promise and sell shares to collect taxes. However, the current transaction seems to have been planned a few months ago.
NAfter a sensational Twitter vote last weekend, the Tesla boss Elon Musk Cashed out his company’s stock for the first time in many years. On Monday, he sold more than 930,000 Tesla notes and made about $1.1 billion. This came out in a mandatory notice issued to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday night (local time). Musk still holds more than 170 million shares of Tesla.
According to a report by the financial services agency Bloomberg, this is the billionaire’s first sale of shares in the electric car manufacturer since 2016. Musk sold the shares to pay taxes on the proceeds.Because he is Tesla With stock options as a reward, he can—at least if he withdraws his shares—to pay the due income tax in cash. While selling the stock, Musk has now exercised 2.15 million options since 2012, valued at approximately $2.5 billion.
Assets of about 300 billion U.S. dollars
In recent years, Tesla’s stock market has risen sharply, according to billionaire lists such as Forbes or Bloomberg Billionaires—at least on paper—making Musk the richest person in the world. Estimated wealth is close to US$300 billion. Last weekend, Musk asked users to vote on Twitter whether he should sell 10% of Tesla’s shares. 58% of the 3.5 million votes were in favor.
If Musk insists on the results of the Twitter vote as promised, his current sale of less than 1% of Tesla’s shares should be just the beginning. In the vote, the Tesla boss mentioned a debate about tax avoidance by the super-rich and the taxation of unrealized price gains. What Musk ultimately hopes to achieve through voting and the extent to which he plans to sell shares can only be speculated at present. The SEC announcement shows that at least the current sale is planned two months before the vote.
