Tesla shares fell sharply on Monday after CEO Elon Musk surprised his Twitter followers with a strange proposal: He offered to sell 10% of his stock and put the decision up for a poll.
The tweet on Saturday came after a recent proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to tax investments every year for the country’s billionaires. That would have marked an unprecedented step, given the U.S. only taxes stock investments when they are sold.
Musk has vocally opposed the plan and, on Saturday, appeared to double down in his tweet.
“Much has made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 percent of my Tesla stock,” he wrote. Then, he asked his followers, “Do you support this?”More than 3.5 million Twitter users participated in the unscientific survey, and 58% voted in favor of Musk selling those shares.
Musk said in a follow-up tweet on Saturday that he would “abide by the results, whichever way it goes.”
Tax experts, however, have noted Musk would have likely had to sell a number of his shares because of how of the way some of his expiring stock options are structured. The taxes owed could be substantial, reaching more than $15 billion
