Elon Musk sold more than $6.9 billion worth of Tesla shares this week, according to regulatory filings, after conducting a Twitter poll.
Shares of Tesla declined 15.4% for the week after the billionaire sold more than 5.1 million shares. Last month, it became the latest company to hit $1 trillion in market value.
It marked the company’s worst one-week performance in 20 months, reported CNBC. It’s also the stock’s worst week ever excluding declines that occurred in February and March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic emerged in the US.
Musk’s sell-off came days after he created a Twitter poll, asking whether he should sell 10% of his stake in the electric carmaker.
Musk had tweeted: ‘Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?’
Almost 58% of the 3.5 million votes cast voted in favour of him going ahead with the sale.
Musk’s tweets followed a proposal by US Congressional Democrats to tax the super wealthy more heavily by targeting stocks, which are usually only taxed when sold.
According to the latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk still holds about 167 million Tesla shares. Musk is the world’s richest person, worth $294 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Tesla shares were trading at $1,005 on Friday, down from a 52-week high of $1,243.49.
