Tesla’s Musk says it sold “enough stock”; California has been accused of “excessive taxation” by Reuters

Author: Hyunjoo Jin

San Francisco (Reuters) – Tesla (NASDAQ 🙂 CEO Elon Musk said he had sold “enough shares” to the world’s most valuable auto company to sell 10 percent of its shares, according to an interview released on Tuesday.

The millionaire who moved the company’s headquarters from California to Texas this month after his personal move last year also accused California of “overtaxing.”

Tesla shares, which were close to record levels, lost a quarter of their value when Musk said on Nov. 6 that it would sell 10% of its stake on Twitter (NYSE 🙂 if users agreed.

On Tuesday, Musk sold another 583,611 shares, bringing the number of shares it unloaded to 13.5 million, about 80% of what it intended to sell.

“I sold enough stock for about 10% plus a chance to get exercise stuff and I tried to be very literal here,” he said in an interview with the Babylon Bee satirical website.

Asked if he had sold the shares as a result of the Twitter poll, he said he should take advantage of the stock options that expire next year. He added that he had sold an “additional stock” to get closer to 10%.

Of the 13.5 million shares sold, 8.06 million were sold as an option to pay taxes related to the exercise.

Musk said on Sunday that Twitter would pay more than $ 11 billion in taxes this year.

“California used to be a land of opportunity and now … more and more regulated, a land of over-litigation, over-taxation,” he said, adding that California is “increasingly difficult.”