The richest person in the world takes a survey on social networks and sinks the value of a tech giant with the answer

By Lora Kolodny and Sam Shead -

Tesla shares fell sharply on Monday after its founder and CEO, Elon Musk, asked his followers on the social network Twitter if he should sell 10% of his stake in the electric vehicle company and the result of that. informal poll outside yes.

The value of the company's shares

to $ 1,184 at noon (Eastern Time), compared to $ 1,222 at the close of the market on Friday.

Visitors to the Brussels motor show look at the new Tesla Model X on January 9, 2020.Virginia May / AP

Musk asked his 62.5 million Twitter followers to determine the future of a portion of his shares in Tesla, in a poll released Saturday on the social network.

"There's been a lot of talk lately that unrealized profits are a means of tax evasion, so I'm proposing to sell 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?" He asked on Twitter.

The billionaire, who is the richest person in the world in part thanks to Tesla's stock valuation, gave the option to vote "Yes" or "No" and

, whatever it was.

More than 3.5 million people participated and 57.9% of them favored "Yes".

[Tesla must pay $ 137 million to a former black worker who reported racist abuse at one of its factories]

Musk had said before the survey that he was likely to sell "a huge block" of his shares during the fourth quarter of 2021.

At the Code conference held in September in Beverly Hills, California, he assured that his marginal tax rate will be higher than 50% when his options on Tesla shares expire, and that he was already planning to sell some.

"

, so I will sell a huge block of shares in the fourth quarter - because I have to or they will expire," he stressed.

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June 9, 202103: 11

Other current and past members of the company's board of directors, such as Robyn Denholm, Kimbal Musk, Ira Ehrenpreis, and Antonio Gracias,

Tesla

since Oct. 28, when shares soared in the Nasdaq market.

The company's stocks rose after Tesla posted a record third quarter and car rental company Hertz announced that it will order 100,000 vehicles from it.

[Government investigates Tesla's autopilot]

Since Hertz's announcement, Tesla shares have risen more than 30% and, consequently, so has Musk's net worth.

Elon's tax bill

Regardless of the results of the Twitter poll, Musk likely would have started selling millions of shares this quarter.

That's because it faces a looming tax bill of more than $ 15 billion.

Your options expire in August 2022, but to exercise them you have to pay income tax on the gain.

Since the options are taxed as a benefit or compensation to employees, they will be taxed at the maximum level of ordinary income, that is, 37% plus 3.8% tax on net investments.

You will also have to pay the 13.3% top tax rate in California, as the options were mostly granted and won while you were a California tax resident.

Combined, the state and federal tax rate will be 54.1%.

So the total tax bill for your options, at today's price, would be $ 15 billion.

Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and brain-computer interface company Neuralink, has not confirmed the amount of the tax bill.

However, he tweeted: “Please note that I do not receive a cash salary or a bonus from anywhere.

I only have shares, so the only way for me to pay taxes personally is by selling shares. "

In October, Democrats proposed a tax on the investment earnings of billionaires to help fund President Joe Biden's $ 1.75 trillion social and climate package.

The so-called billionaire income tax would also close a loophole that has allowed the hyper-rich to defer taxes on capital gains indefinitely, a strategy known as "buy, borrow, die."

Senate Finance Committee Chair Democrat Ron Wyden, who formally introduced the billionaires' income tax bill, tweeted this weekend: “Whether or not the richest man in the world pays taxes. it should depend on the results of a Twitter poll. "