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Elon Musk Sells $1.1Billion Of His Tesla Stock After Twitter Poll Told Him To Do So

Elon Musk tax
Credit: Tesla Intelligence UK via YouTube & Unsplash

Elon Musk has sold off $1.1billion worth of Tesla Stock. 

The SpaceX founder created a poll on Twitter to ask his followers for their thoughts and promised to ‘abide by’ their opinion.

The poll read: “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 percent of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” 

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He later added: “I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.”

57.9 percent of his followers voted that he should sell the stock, so the entrepreneur put his money where his mouth is.  

Documents filed with the US securities and exchange commission show the tech billionaire auctioned off almost one million shares in Tesla. With their current valuation, it puts the price at $1.1 billion.

In the documentation, Musk listed the purpose of the sale as ‘solely to satisfy the reporting person’s tax withholding obligations related to the exercise of stock options’.

By posting the poll, Musk caused the value of shares in the company to fall by around 4.6%, according to the BBC.

His personal fortune has also reportedly plunged by a whopping $50 billion (£37bn) in just two days, but he remains the richest man in the world. 

The billionaire recently said he will sell $6bn Tesla stock and give it to the UN if they ‘can prove it will solve world hunger’.

The claim came when the UN’s World Food Programme director, David Beasley, called on the tech billionaire and Jeff Bezos to reconsider where they put their money.

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In response, Musk took to Twitter and replied: “If WFP [World Food Programme] can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6bn will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.”

He added: “But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.

“Please publish your current and proposed spending in detail so people can see exactly where [the] money goes.”

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Written by Aimee Walker

Aimee is a senior content editor at IGV who specialises in finding the best original stories, trending topics and entertainment news. She graduated from Birmingham City University with a degree in Media and Communications.