Elon Musk takes Twitter polls very seriously.
Musk has decided to sell 10% of his Tesla stock following a poll that asked users whether they should. Approximately 58 percent of respondents voted yes. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk sold approximately 4.5 million shares this week. The total value of the sale is more than $5 billion.
Musk has 170.5 million Tesla shares, and the option to purchase 73.5 million additional. Although it is not clear if he includes the optioned shares in his calculation of his 10% goal, he still has to sell quite some more shares to achieve that.
Musk stated that he would sell the stock to pay taxes when he posted the poll. Musk doesn't receive a salary so selling stock is the only way he can pay tax on the gains.
Musk may have another reason for wanting to sell stock and pay taxes. CNBC reports that Musk will face a $15 billion tax bill on his stock options in the next months. This would mean that he would have to sell some Tesla stock to pay this bill. The convenient fact that Tesla stock was at an all time high of $1,220 at the time Musk posted his Twitter poll (the stock price dropped roughly 17 percent after the poll).
Musk will have to pay 54.1 per cent in taxes, regardless of whether it was the Will of the Twitterverse or the looming tax bills. Given that Musk is not a wealthy person and lives on borrowed funds, it will be interesting to see what he does with the remainder.
