World’s wealthiest person says proposed billionaires tax led to poll, the result of which sent price falling
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and world’s richest person, asked his 62.8 million Twitter followers over the weekend whether he should sell $21bn (£15.5bn) worth of shares in the electric car company in order to pay tax. Tweeting he would “abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes”, 58% of those who responded said “yes”, he should sell the shares, sending Tesla’s share price down 5% in pre-market trading on Monday.
Why did he do it?
Musk, who is sitting on a paper fortune of more than $338bn in Tesla and Space-X shares, proposed selling 10% of his Tesla shares in order to generate enough money to pay a proposed “billionaires tax” on “unrealised capital gains”.
