Elon Musk Photograph:( AFP )

Elon Musk proposes to sell 10% of his Tesla stock in Twitter poll

· WION

Story highlights

Musk’s sudden announcement comes amid pressure in Washington to increase taxes on billionaires. Some Democrats have been wanting to impose a new tax on America’s wealthiest by taxing unrealized capital gains—a type of gains that is accrued when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they do not sell any shares

Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to decide the fate his 10% stock in the electric car company and asked his 62.6 million followers in a poll if he should sell his stocks.

He has said that he would “abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.”

Musk’s sudden announcement comes amid pressure in Washington to increase taxes on billionaires. Some Democrats have been wanting to impose a new tax on America’s wealthiest by taxing unrealized capital gains—a type of gains that is accrued when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they do not sell any shares.

According to reports, Musk’s unrealized capital gains stand at roughly US $300 billion.

Also read | Elon Musk's Starlink registers business in India, targets satellite internet access

“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?” he tweeted on Saturday afternoon.

Much of Musk’s wealth is held in shares of Tesla, which does not pay him a cash salary.

“I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock," he tweeted.

By 10:30 am (Indian time), over 55 per cent have said yes out of a total of 2,262,895 votes. The poll is scheduled to end around 3 pm ET (2000 GMT) on Sunday.

Also read | Tesla CEO Elon Musk wealthier than Pakistan’s GDP

Musk's shareholding in Tesla comes to about 170.5 million shares as of June 30 and selling 10 per cent of his stock would amount close to $21 billion based on Friday's closing, according to Reuters calculations.

The so-called “Billionaires Income Tax” would apply solely to 700 taxpayers who have at least $1 billion in assets or $100 million in income for three straight years.

According to the proposal, the proposed tax would raise around “hundreds of billions of dollars.”

America's billionaires have seen their collected wealth surge 70% since the start of the pandemic to over $5 trillion, according to an analysis by the pro-wealth-tax Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality.

That gain from March 18, 2020, is equal in size to Biden's spending plans over 10 years, news agency AP reported.

(With inputs from agencies)