Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he would sell 10% of his holdings — worth about $20 billion — in the electric car maker based on the results of a poll he conducted on Twitter over the weekend.
Tesla shares slumped in early trading Monday.
Musk said he would abide by the results of the poll, which ended with 58% of more than 3.5 million votes calling for him to sell the stock. Musk owns about 17% of the 1 billion outstanding Tesla shares. If he sold 10% of his holdings at their current price of around $1,170 per share, it would net him around $20 billion.
Tesla’s stock price fell $49.59, or 4.1%, to $1,172.50 a share after the market opened.
But Musk’s motivation for selling the stake could be deeper than a push from a Twitter poll. Musk holds about 23 million stock options, awarded in 2012, that will expire in August. But the grant — valued at about $30 billion — is structured in such a way that he would likely have to pay income taxes when he exercises the options, the report noted. The tax bill could exceed $10 billion.
