Photo: SNL

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he has achieved the previously set target of selling around 10% of his shares of the company. The sale was related to the fact that he needed to raise money to cover the tax liabilities associated with the expiration of the options. In 2021 alone, Musk paid $11 billion in taxes, becoming the first person in U.S. history to pay taxes of this staggering amount.

Since Elon Musk has been selling his Tesla shares in the past six weeks, he has been the target of criticism—the sole goal of which was to distort reality and cast the head of the company in a negative light. Even U.S. politicians have used this to ride the wave of popularity to speak badly about Musk. For example, Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose taxes and salary are covered by taxpayer money, took advantage of this and organized a Facebook ad campaign to collect $10 per person for her own purposes.

Recently, in an interview with The Babylon Bee, Musk answered several questions related to his stock sale. He clarified that he does not own any offshore accounts and does not have any cunning systems to evade taxes. Since he does not receive a salary at Tesla and SpaceX, and all his funds are in the shares of these companies, he was simply forced to sell part of the shares in order to pay taxes.

Musk explained that he had several options for how to pay the tax. One of the options was the sale of 10% of his Tesla shares, which he proposed on Twitter. Since the majority voted in favor of this option, the head of the company did just that.

To date, Musk has sold the required number of shares, saying that he "sold enough" to reach his 10% goal. "I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option-exercise stuff, and I tried to be extremely literal here," he said in an interview with The Babylon Bee. However, Musk will finish selling once his 10b plan is fully executed, which will require another two blocks of shares to be sold. 

Filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk has sold about 13.8 million shares since asking his Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his stake in early November. However, keep in mind that Musk's 10% stake on voting day was equal to approximately 17 million shares.

© 2021, Eva Fox | Tesmanian. All rights reserved.

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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter

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