《TAIPEI TIMES》 Tesla’s Musk polls 10％ stock sale idea on Twitter

/ Reuters

Tesla Inc chief executive officer Elon Musk on Saturday asked his 62.5 million followers on Twitter in a poll if he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock.

The world’s richest person had previously said that he could this year face a “massive” tax bill as he has to exercise a large number of stock options coming due next year.

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“Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock,” Musk wrote.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 percent of my Tesla stock,” he said, referring to a “billionaires’ tax” proposed by Democrats in the US Congress.

Musk has criticized the proposal, which would affect 700 US billionaires and impose taxes for long-term capital gains on tradable assets, whether or not they have been sold.

Musk said that he would abide by the results of the poll, whichever way it goes.

The poll received nearly 2 million responses in seven hours after he posted it, with 55 percent of respondents approving the proposal to sell the shares.

The poll was scheduled to end early today.

Musk on June 30 held about 170.5 million Tesla shares, and selling 10 percent of his stock would amount to close to US$21 billion based on Friday’s closing.

Musk has an option to buy 22.86 million shares at US$6.24 each, which expires on Aug. 13 next year, Tesla has said in a filing.

The electric automaker’s closing price was US$1,222.09 on Friday.

In September, Musk said he is likely to pay taxes of more than half the gains he would make from exercising options.

He also dismissed the possibility that he would take loans with his Tesla shares as collateral. “Stocks don’t always go up. They go down,” he said.

Some Tesla board members, including his brother, Kimbal Musk, offloaded large numbers of shares after Tesla stock hit a record high late last month.

Musk late last month wrote on Twitter that he would sell US$6 billion in Tesla stock and donate it to the World Food Programme if the organization disclosed more information about how it spent its money.

Musk’s Twitter poll raised some eyebrows in the world of finance.

“We are witnessing the Twitter masses deciding the outcome of a $25B coin flip,” Venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya wrote on Twitter.

“Looking forward to the day when the richest person in the world paying some tax does not depend on a Twitter poll,” University of California at Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman wrote.

Musk got into trouble with a tweet about taking Tesla private in 2018.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES