By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) traded nearly 6% lower in Monday’s premarket as a Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) poll favoring a stake sale by CEO Elon Musk created anxiety about his next move.
Musk had asked his followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake. He framed the question as a response to recent proposals from Democratic lawmakers to tax unrealized stock gains, as a way to finance their spending bill which is currently held up in Congress due to a lack of support for other funding options.
Musk had said he “will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.” The poll garnered more than 3.5 million votes (out of Musk's total following of over 82 million), and almost 58% of respondents voted ‘yes’.
Musk had previously said he would have to exercise a large number of stock options over three months, which would create a big tax bill. Selling some of his stock would free up funds to pay those taxes.
As of June 30, Musk's shareholding in Tesla came to about 170.5 million shares and selling 10% would fetch him short of $21 billion based on Friday's close of $1,222.09.
Including stock options, Musk owns a 23% stake in Tesla, the world's most valuable car company, according to Reuters.
Tesla shares have touched all-time highs and traded around those levels last few days, against the backdrop of solid sales and profit figures from the company and the prospect - so far unconfirmed - of bulk orders from car rental firms such as Hertz Global (OTC:HTZZ).