The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing reports Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer, has donated 5,004,000 shares to the charity from Nov. 19 to Nov. 29 last year.
According to estimates, Elon Musk has donated about $ 5.74 billion, but the filing did not reveal which charity received the donation.
In this regard the analyst of the Institute for Policy Studies, Bob Lord argues that Musk’s action was merely to avoid paying taxes alone.
According to him, shares donated to charities are not subject to capital gains tax. So, indirectly Musk has saved about 40% to 50% of the $ 5.7 billion value to pay taxes.
On the other hand, Musk may have donated the shares to intermediaries such as ‘donor advisory funds’ rather than directly to charitable groups.
As of this writing, Tesla has not issued any comments or statements on the matter.
The public knows Musk once criticized Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who suggested the rich pay more taxes than the general public.
In addition, he also once sold 10% of his shareholding worth $ 16.4 billion after voting on Twitter and he also tweeted to pay more than $ 11 billion in taxes in 2021 as the exercise of his stock options expires this year.
Meanwhile, Musk's actions are seen in line with the nature of other philanthropists such as Jeff Bezos who has donated about 1% of his net worth as well as Warren Buffett and George Soros who have donated more than 20% of their net worth in early September.
