Twitter Is Making Decisions For Elon Musk

Elon Musk has asked his 62.5 million Twitter followers to determine the future of 10% of his Tesla ($TSLA@US) holdings. The Tesla CEO asked users on Saturday to decide whether or not he should hold or sell his stock. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?” he posted. Musk added a Yes or No poll function. Twitter polls are informal, but Musk had already previously mentioned he may sell a chunk of his options in the fourth quarter. Musk appeared at the Code Conference in September and said when his stock options expire at Tesla, his marginal tax rate will be over 50% and he was already planning to sell soon. Other current and former Tesla board members have also sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their Tesla shares since October 28 when the company’s stock rallied. Shares climbed after a record third quarter for Tesla, as Hertz rental car company announced it was ordering 100,000 Tesla vehicles for its fleet. Musk waited a week to clarify that Tesla had not signed a contract with the rental car company yet. Since the Hertz announcement, Tesla shares have risen by around 34% and so has Elon Musk’s net worth. Tesla had just over 1 billion shares outstanding as of late October. If Musk exercised his options today, the number of shares outstanding would increase by just over 2%.