Tesla CEO Elon Musk is once again the subject of a Twitter flurry after posting a poll asking if he should sell Tesla stock to pay taxes, reports Forbes. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” wrote the richest man in the world. “Do you support this?” Below was a Yes/No poll, with the current tally being 54.9% of respondents voting ‘Yes’ and 45.4% voting ‘No.’ Musk, also the founder of SpaceX, promised to abide by whatever the results of the poll are, meaning he could potentially be paying over $25 billion in taxes. According to Investopedia, Musk owns 193.3 million Tesla shares, which is just over $250 billion—so a 10 percent sell-off would be valued around $25 billion, and a hefty chunk would then go to the U.S. government in capital gains taxes. In a later Tweet, Musk disclosed why he doesn’t already pay a hefty amount in taxes considering his exorbitant wealth. “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,” wrote Musk.
