Tesla's Musk offloads nearly $10B worth of share since Twitter poll, passes halfway mark

• Musk has offloaded 9.2 million shares and exercised options till now

• He would need to sell 17 million shares to reach 10% mark

Tesla Inc chief Elon Musk resumed selling shares of the electric carmaker and passed the halfway mark toward his plan to offload 10% of his personal holdings.

The billionaire sold another 934,091 shares for $1.05 billion, U.S. SEC filings showed which was posted late Tuesday.

Also Read: Tesla falls below $1 trillion in market value after share sale and Musk's tweets

The sales were carried out after exercising options to buy 2.15 million shares, the documents show.

Musk’s poll

Earlier this month, Tesla CEO asked his 62.5 million followers in a Twitter poll, "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?"

Also Read: Tesla shares fall after Musk’s Twitter poll on selling stocks

More than 3 million people responded to the poll, and 57.9% people voted for “Yes.” Musk said he would abide by the results of the poll, whichever way it went.

Since the poll, till the most recent disposals, Musk has sold 9.2 million shares of Tesla, which included both his personal holdings through his trust and his stock options, worth about $9.9 billion.

A chunk of that money which the billionaire will receive from the sale will go to taxes.

Share sale

To reach the 10% threshold, Musk would have to sell around 17 million more shares, or nearly 1.7% of the company’s outstanding stock. If his exercisable options are factored into his overall ownership, he’ll need to sell even more.

While, Musk has not said how he will spend or invest $9.9 billion, he will pocket from the stock sales so far, which are taxable at capital gains rates, Tesla earlier disclosed that the CEO would have to exercise more than 26 million stock options by August 2022, which would create a hefty tax bill.

The move to sell Tesla holdings followed U.S. Senate Democrats proposal on taxing the stock holdings of billionaires to help finance President Joe Biden’s social spending plan.

Picture Credit: The Guardian