Elon Musk Has Donated Over $5.7 Billion USD in Tesla Shares to Charity

A recent SEC filing unveiled that Tesla‘s founder Elon Musk donated over $5.7 billion USD in stocks to a charity in November 2021.

The donation, which consisted of approximately 5,044,000 shares of one of the world’s most valuable automotive companies, came after the CEO billionaire sold $16.4 billion USD worth of shares after taking to Twitter to announce he will be offloading 10% of his stake. According to Reuters, he also claimed “he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 due to his exercise of stock options set to expire this year.”

Since shares donated to charity would not be subject to capital gains taxes if sold, Musk had great tax benefit in gifting the Tesla stock. Bob Lord said, “His tax benefit would be huge. He’d save between 40% and 50% of the $5.7 billion in tax, depending on whether he could take the deduction against his California income and he’d avoid the gains tax he would have to pay if he sold the stock.”

Musk’s donation marks the second-biggest after Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates’ last year. In comparison to other billionaires, Musks’ philanthropic efforts have trailed others. Combined with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, they have donated less than 1% of their net worth. Warren Buffet and George Soros on the other hand, have given away more than 20% by early September.

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