Elon Musk says he will sell Tesla stock after a poll he posted on Twitter voted for him to do so. The richest man in the world sent out the poll on Saturday that ended on Sunday with 3.5 million votes.
Musk pledged to sell 10% of his stock holdings in Tesla Inc. as a response to a proposed tax on billionaires that would subject some assets of about 700 Americans to annual capital-gains taxes on increases in values, the Wall Street Journal reported.
After a surge in Tesla stock, Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in the world, valued at $381.4 billion.
"Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," Musk said in a tweet. "I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes."
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The proposed tax would have taxed the billionaires' unrealized gains on publicly traded assets, so they would be taxed whether or not their assets were sold.
This would have stopped a billionaire's ability to defer capital-gains taxes indefinitely.
In response to Musk's poll, the Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Ron Wyden, released a statement.
"Whether or not the world's wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn't depend on the results of a Twitter poll," Wyden said, the Journal reported.
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The Democratic senator has supported the tax on billionaires' income, and he shared that support in his statement.
10% of his stock holdings would be around 2% of the company's stock itself, being that Musk holds more than 17% of Tesla stock, valued at over $200 billion, according to the Journal.
The amount could be around $21 billion based on the stock's closing price on Friday of $1,222.009.
In a tweet on Saturday, Musk, who takes no salary as the Chief Executive of Tesla, said, "the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock."
