Elon Musk asked Twitter whether he should sell 10% off his Tesla shares. The response was a clear "yes"
Musk 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.
Sen. Ron Wyden tweeted, "Whether or not the wealthiest man in the world pays any taxes should not depend on the results from a Twitter poll."
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Elon Musk asked Twitter whether he should sell 10% off his Tesla shares. The response was a clear "yes."
Musk, Tesla CEO and the richest person in the world, opened the poll Saturday by saying that "Much has been made lately of unrealized gain being a way of tax avoidance. So I propose selling 10% my Tesla stock."
Although he pledged to follow the results "whichever way they go", he did not specify how the 10% would pay taxes. Over 3.5 million people voted. 57.9% voted for him to give up the stock, and 42.1% voted against.
Musk, who hasn’t accepted his Tesla salary for years, owned 170.5 million Tesla shares at the end of June. They were valued at around $208.3 billion by Friday’s close. A sale of 10% would be equivalent to approximately $21 billion. Musk's net worth jumped to $335Billion this year as Tesla stock surged. Tesla's market capitalization exceeded $1 trillion last month, and Musk's net worth soared to $335Billion. Bloomberg's index of the richest people in the world shows Musk as the most wealthy person.
ProPublica published a June analysis using IRS tax returns data. It showed that centibillionaires like Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have not paid any income taxes in recent years.
Musk's poll comes at a time when the billionaire is critical of a Democratic proposal to Washington to impose a tax on unrealized gains for billionaires. Current US tax law states that assets like stocks are only taxed when they are sold for what is called a capital gain. For many Americans, however, the main source of income for the richest is the value of their assets, or unrealized profits.
Musk claimed that the legislation was not well-managed and was the beginning of a new left campaign to redistribute wealth away from the richest Americans.
Sen. Ron Wyden (the author of the billionaires income tax proposal) reacted to Musk's poll.
Wyden stated that Wyden's statement "Whether or not the wealthiest man in the world pays any taxes should not depend on the results from a Twitter poll." "It's now time for the Billionaires Income Tax."
An analysis by the White House found that billionaires pay 8.2% income taxes on unrealized gains, which is far less than the average American.
Musk's 2018 Tesla compensation agreement includes stock-based compensation. He can push the company to achieve certain operating metrics to get his options. Musk stated in September that he would likely have to tax half of the gains from exercising his options.
