Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers whether they would like to sell 10% of their Tesla stock.
Musk tweeted, "Much has been made lately of unrealized gain being a method of tax avoidance."
Musk blasted a Democratic proposal to tax billionaires last month, claiming it was an attempt to redistribute wealth away from the wealthiest Americans.
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On Saturday, billionaire Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers whether they wanted to sell 10% of their Tesla stock. He promised to "abide" by the results.
The CEO of Tesla, an electric car manufacturer, stated that "Much has been made lately about unrealized gains being used as a way of tax avoidance", and suggested selling 10% of his Tesla stock. He didn't specify exactly where the 10% would go.
Musk isn't the only one to criticize Washington's proposals that would tax billionaires who have made net worth gains. Current US tax law states that assets such as stocks are only taxed when they are sold for what is called a capital gain. The richest Americans are likely not selling their stock portfolios. Instead, their primary source of income is the unrealized gains or the value of their assets.
Musk blasted a Democratic proposal to tax billionaires. It was being proposed to fund a safety net expansion and social spending bill. He said it represented the beginning of a new left campaign to redistribute wealth away from the richest Americans.
He wrote that "Eventually they run out other people's cash and then they come after you" on Twitter.
Musk also tweeted that any government-induced wealth redistribution would be better managed in a separate tweet.
He wrote on Twitter, "Who is better at capital allocation government than entrepreneurs?" "The tricksters will confuse capital allocation with consumption."
As Tesla stock continues to rise, Musk's net worth has increased to $335 billion. He is the richest person in Bloomberg's index of the world's wealthiest people.
An analysis by the White House found that income billionaires who have not realized their gains pay 8.2% on average in income taxes. This is far less than what an average American pays.
In the meantime, an economist Gabriel Zucman of The Washington Post has done a new analysis and found that Musk could be subject to up to $50 billion in taxes over the first five years if a tax on billionaires passes.
