Elon Musk says he will sell 10% of Tesla shares if Twitter wants him to

‘I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes’, tech exec pledges

Elon Musk says he will sell 10 per cent of his Teslashares worth around $25bn if Twitter tells him to do so.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, who has a personal worth of more than $330bn, made the bold promise on the social media platform and set up poll for his followers to vote.

Mr Musk reportedly owns around 23 per cent of the electric vehicle maker, with each share being worth $1,2209 at close on Friday.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he tweeted.

“I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes. Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”

By Saturday afternoon there had been more than 706,000 votes, with 55.7 per cent in favor of him selling his stock.

The move came days after the entrepreneur said he would sell Tesla stock and donate the money to the United Nations if they could prove that his cash would save millions of lives.

The World Food Programme’s director David Beasley had told CNN he wanted the top 400 US billionaires to donate $6bn to help save 42m people in 43 famine-hit countries.

Mr Beasley singled out Mr Musk, as well as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s two richest people to dig deep.

“I’m not asking them to do this every day, every week, every year,” Mr Beasley told CNN.

“We have a one-time crisis: a perfect storm of conflict, climate change and Covid. It’s a one-time phenomenon. Just help me with them one time. That’s a $6bn price tag.”

Mr Musk responded by saying that if he was to do so,the UN process “must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.”

He added: “Please publish your current & proposed spending in detail so people can see exactly where (the) money goes. Sunlight is a wonderful thing.”