Elon Musk’s $25 Billion Twitter Poll: Sell Tesla Stock To Pay Taxes?

Taxes

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk just launched a Twitter poll that is literally worth over $25 billion.

Musk, who doesn’t take a significant salary and whose wealth is therefore protected from taxation as his companies’ valuations grow, is asking his Twitter followers if he should sell Tesla stock in order to pay tax.

This is no idle tweet: Musk says he will abide by the results of the poll … whichever way it goes.

Tesla’s market capitalization, according to Yahoo Finance, is currently $1.22 trillion US. Elon Musk owns 193.3 million Tesla shares, representing 20.7% of total shares outstanding, according to Investopedia.

That means Elon Musk owns just over $250 billion of Tesla stock. And 10% of that is, obviously, $25 billion plus.

Give or take a billion dollars or so as the stock markets fluctuate.

I’m not sure there’s any precedent for this kind of move by the richest human being on the planet. A $25 billion sale, which Musk would likely manage over time to avoid crashing the stock, would be globally significant. It would also result in a massive tax bill for Musk: at least in the 20% range for capital gains, though Musk has recently said on that exercising his soon-to-expire options would be taxed at a much higher 54% rate. Whatever the number, selling Tesla stock would provide billions in tax receipts for the U.S. government.

That may not quite pay for the new Biden infrastructure plan … but it would definitely help.

In full disclosure, I answered the poll in the affirmative, and replied to Musk that he should in fact sell Tesla stock:

This poll follows significant online discussion about the ways wealthy people use to avoid tax. Bloomberg recently published a major story about how billionaires like Nike founder Phil Knight avoid tax, keep money in the family, and generally don’t share in the burdens and costs of running a country that provided them the eduction, economy, incentives, and opportunity to become mega-rich magnates.

Knight’s $60 billion net worth, however, pales beside Musk’s $300 billion fortune, more than any in history, Forbes has said, and greater than the annual GDP of nations like Finland, Chile, and Vietnam, according to CBS.

Recently, a CNN story quoted a UN director saying that 2% of Musk’s wealth could help solve world hunger; Musk replied by asking for a detailed plan, with open source accounting.

As things stand at 1PM PST on November 6, over half a million votes have been cast.

A slight majority is currently in favor of the plan: 55.6%.

44.4% of respondents, however, clearly feel that Musk’s wealth is best off in Musk’s hands, likely feeling that he has shown to be someone who invests in the future rather than simply spending extravagantly on houses, cars, yachts, and the other popular purchases of the rich and famous.

The poll has 23 hours left to run, and could end up being the most voted-upon poll in Twitter history.

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