Musk Sells $5 Billion Worth Tesla Stock to Pay Taxes

This week, billionaire Elon Muskn sold Tesla Inc. (TSLA) stock worth $5 billion to pay taxes as he had promised in a twitter poll last week in which he asked his followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares to pay taxes since he doesn’t receive cash salary or cash bonuses.

The founder and chief executive officer of Tesla sold almost 3.6 million shares worth around $4 billion subsequently selling another 934,000 shares worth $1.1 billion. These 4.5 million shares represent about 3% of his entire stock holdings in Tesla.

The extra share sales were made separately and they provide Musk with an extra cash pool as he doesn’t receive any cash since most of his wealth it in form of stocks and investments in his two companies Tesla and SpaceX.

This was the first time since 2016 Musk has sold his Tesla holdings which according to Forbes, make up the majority of his $281.6 billion fortune.

Mark Arnold, the chief investment officer at Hyperion Asset Management, says that if Musk went ahead with his initial announced plan of selling 10% of his Tesla holdings, it would be a slight negative near term. Tesla is the biggest investor in the global fund of Hyperion Asset Management.

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