Elon Musk will face $15 billion in taxes. This is allegedly the reason for wanting to release 10% of Tesla's shares.
In a poll of his 62.7 million followers on Twitter, he asked whether he should sell some of his shares.
"There's a lot of talk that unrealized gains mean tax evasion, so I'm planning to sell 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?" Musk wrote. Unrealized gains are profits that have not been realized, because profits only occur if the shares have been sold.
Even so, Elon Musk admitted that he would not make the results of this poll affect his decisions. He also said that he never got any cash for salary or bonuses therefore, the way he paid taxes was by selling his shares.
His electric car company Tesla also recently revealed that Musk has taken out a loan using his stock as collateral. With the sale, Musk may also want to pay back some of the debt obligations.
At an appearance at the Code conference in September, Elon Musk said "I have a lot of options expiring early next year, so ... a lot of options will be sold in Q4 - because I have to or they will expire."
Musk can actually borrow more from his Tesla stock. Now its shares have amounted to more than USD 200 billion. However, he has pledged USD 92 million in shares to lenders for cash loans.
When asked at the Code conference about lending to such volatile stocks, he replied that stocks don't always go up but they can go down as well. This is quoted from CNBC.
