Taxes, Musk launches Twitter poll: “Shall I sell 10% of Tesla?”

ROME – Elon Musk launched a poll of his Twitter followers asking whether or not he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock. The entrepreneur assured that he would stick with the results of the survey, whatever the outcome.

In the mid-afternoon in New York (and thus evening in Italy), more than 55% of the approximately 285,000 people who voted, a few hours after the initiative was launched, suggested selling it.

The initiative starts again from a discussion on Twitter about how the rich avoid paying taxes. Musk, the world’s richest person with $243 billion in assets, said the only way to pay his taxes was to sell a portion of his stock. The discussion began with the law that US President Joe Biden intends to pass to tax profits on the super-rich exchange.

“There has been a lot of talk lately about unrealized gains as a way to avoid taxes, so I am proposing to sell 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you agree?” Musk tweeted. The Wall Street Journal, Musk owned approximately 22.4% of the company’s outstanding shares at the end of last year.

In fact, it has come to mind these days in the US, the wealthy are not taxed because unlike ordinary workers they are not paid. But they are getting richer because the value of their assets increases, so they are able to buy more and get rich more without paying taxes. Whereas if you sell shares you obviously make a taxable profit: hence Musk’s suggestion.