Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk says he’s now sold enough stock, achieving his goal of selling 10 percent of his shares in the EV automaker. Speaking to satirical website Babylon Bee, Musk also criticized California for “over-taxation.” Shares in Tesla have increased by six percent since the interview.
Poll Results Or Impending Tax Bill?
In November, Musk asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock. More than 3.5 million users participated, with the majority voting that TIME Magazine’s Person Of The Year goes ahead with the plan. Shares in Tesla lost nearly a quarter of their value with the poll results.
Asked whether he sold the stock because of the Twitter results, Musk said that he needed to exercise his stock options before they expired, no matter what, but that he had also sold an additional “incremental stock” to get near the portion promised. “I sold enough stock to get to around 10 percent plus the option exercise stuff, and I tried to be extremely literal here,” said Musk.
See: Elon Musk Sells More Tesla Shares And Says Carmaker Will Start Accepting Dogecoin
After a war of words with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren over his taxes, Musk tweeted that his tax bill would be roughly $11 billion this year — potentially the largest individual payment to the Internal Revenue Service. Out of the 13.5 million shares sold, it’s reported that 8.06 were sold to pay taxes related to his options exercise.
Californian Criticism
Tesla relocated its headquarters to Texas earlier this month. The move has been long-mooted, with tensions between Musk and Californian officials initially flaring up over Covid-19 restrictions that forced it to halt production at the Freemont factory.
Musk didn’t mince his words speaking on Babylon Bee’s podcast. “California used to be the land of opportunity and now it is… becoming more so the land of sort of over-regulation, over-litigation, over-taxation,” he said, adding that it is “increasingly difficult to get things done” in California.