Elon Musk sells Tesla shares valued at $5 billion

Multibillionaire Elon Musk sold around 4.5 million shares of Tesla vehicle company stock, according to Business Insider. The stocks were valued at $5 billion to meet a tax payment.

The stock sale occurred between Monday and Wednesday after Musk polled his Twitter followers last weekend on whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares. Most of his followers approved.

“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?,” Tweeted Musk. Out of the 3.5 million users who participated in the survey, 57.9% answered yes.

After selling less than 1% of his shares on Monday, he sold about 2% over the next two days, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). It is unknown whether he will continue to sell shares until he reaches the 10% he promised on Twitter.

Musk still owns nearly 17% of Tesla shares, valued at around $180 billion. The vehicle company was recently valued at $1 trillion.

Monday’s sales were part of a plan that had been implemented on September 14, almost two months before the Twitter poll, according to the SEC.

Musk, considered the richest man in the world, sold around 2.15 million shares of the stock at $6.24 each, obtaining $13.4 billion. He then sold 934,000 shares at different prices, raising more than $1.1 billion. On Wednesday, he sold an additional 3.6 million shares for a total of about $4 billion.