Benefactor or saver?
Musk donates shares worth billions
2/15/2022, 6:58 p.m
So far, Elon Musk has not emerged as a major benefactor. But now a document has appeared that shows the Tesla founder’s donations in the billions. He himself also benefits from this for tax purposes.
Tesla founder Elon Musk has donated five million of his shares in the US electric car manufacturer worth $ 5.7 billion (around five billion euros). The richest person in the world donated Tesla shares to charity back in November, according to an exchange document. However, it is unclear to whom the donations went.
What is known is that they came at a time when Musk was selling many of his shares to pay taxes. According to calculations by the Wall Street Journal, the 50-year-old high-tech pioneer sold shares worth more than $16 billion in the last two months of last year.
Musk announced on Twitter in December that he would pay $11 billion in taxes for all of 2021. With donations, the tax burden can thus be reduced.
Richest person in the world
According to Forbes magazine, Musk, who founded SpaceX alongside Tesla, is the richest person in the world with assets currently worth $245 billion. He has repeatedly clashed with left-wing politicians in the US, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, who advocate higher taxes on the wealthy.
Musk signed the Giving Pledge initiative in 2012, in which the super-rich pledge to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. The initiative was founded in 2012 by billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Buffett himself had pledged to donate 99 percent of his wealth to charitable foundations. Other campaign signatories include former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and SAP founder Hasso Plattner.