Elon Musk tweets poll asking if he should sell some Tesla stock

Sunday, 7 November 2021

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is asking on Twitter whether he should sell 10 per cent of his stock in the electric-vehicle company as pressure mounts on US politicians to increase taxes on billionaires like him.

Some Democrats have been pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they don't sell any shares. It's a concept called “unrealised gains,” and Musk is sitting on a lot of them with a net worth of roughly US$300 billion.

“Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Do you support this?”

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As of 4pm on Sunday afternoon (NZ), a few hours after Musk's initial tweet, 55 per cent said yes out of a total of two million votes.

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.

Musk, who is known for his sometimes flippant tweets, said he would “abide by the results of this poll”.