Tesla down 4% after Musk asks about stock sale in Twitter poll

ANKARA

Tesla stock price was down more than 4% in pre-market on Monday after CEO Elon Musk asked about selling 10% of his company shares in a Twitter poll.

Stock price of Tesla was trading at $1,171 per share before opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange at 8.30 a.m. EDT, down almost 4.2% from Friday's closing of $1,222 a share, according to official data.

"Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," Musk, who changed his name to "Lorde Edge," wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

"Do you support this?" he added, generating a response from over 3.5 million users in a poll, which resulted in 57.9% in favor and 42.1% against his proposal.

"I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes," he said.

Musk's decision comes as the CEO is facing a tax bill of more than $15 billion, and most of its company executives are selling some of their share to take profit with Tesla stock price skyrocketing.

"Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock," Musk wrote in another tweet.

After Tesla posted record third quarter income and revenue on Oct. 20, its market value hit $1 trillion on Oct. 25, and its stock price climbed to a new all-time high of $1,243.49 on Friday, giving it a market cap of over $1.21 trillion.