Over the weekend Elon Musk did something rather peculiar – using Twitter to run a poll over whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock in order to ostensibly “pay” his taxes.
As with most things that Musk does, it garnered quite a bit of interest, with over 3.5 million votes and 57.9 percent supporting the idea to sell the aforementioned Tesla stock.
Mush followed up the poll by noting that he would abide by the results, regardless of what the outcome was. Now that his Twitter following has voiced their opinion, it remains to be seen whether the tech billionaire will follow through, with no further mention on when the selling of the stock would happen at the time of writing.
Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.
Do you support this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021
This song and dance on social media is the latest action from Musk in relation to the proposal to tax unrealised gains, which the Tesla CEO is a critic of.
As The Verge points out, the proposed bill from Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, would see taxes being paid if assets increased in value, even if the person didn’t sell the assets. This is seen as one particular loophole that the uber wealthy have used for some time now in order to avoid paying taxes.
Following the results of the poll, Wyden tweeted a reply to Musk. “Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll, It’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax,” he said.
We have to side with the US senator on this one, especially as this is not the first time that Musk’s antics on Twitter has potentially influenced the state of affairs at Tesla, with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) forcing him to step down as chairman back in 2018 over what he was tweeting.
While Musk is free to do with his money as he sees fit, for Tesla investors and board members, if this Twitter poll was more than a publicity stunt, it is quite concerning.
