Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly donated over $5.7 billion in company shares to charity in November, according to a recent report.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, Musk said he donated 5,044,000 shares from the world’s most valuable automaker to a charity between Nov. 19 and Nov. 29.
During that time on the stock market, the shares were worth $5.74 billion. It also depended on the closing prices of Tesla shares during that time.
The donation was worth $5.74 billion, based on the closing prices of Tesla shares on the five days that he donated the stocks.
Reuters reported on Elon Musk’s filing, which did not disclose the name of the charity.
Elon Musk Had An Eventful 2021
The billionaire seems to be selling and dishing out the massive cash last year. Oh, and he just loves his Twitter account.
At one point, he sold $16.4 billion in shares after gauging his Twitter users about selling off 10% of his stake in his car company.
In another Tweet, Elon Musk told the world he would pay $11 billion in taxes last year because he had to exercise some expiring stock options.
Musk got into it with American politicians who wanted people to pay more taxes. The Tesla owner even got into it with a teenager who published his private jet’s flight path through publicly available information.
Musk’s Charity Donation Helps His Taxes
Analysts say Musk’s November charity gifting would help his tax situation. The $5.7 billion the man gifted to the unknown charity would not be subject to a capital gains tax. On the other hand, they would get taxed if he sold them.
Bob Lord, who studies tax policy for the Institute of Policy Studies, said Musk would save between 40 and 50 percent of that $5.7 billion in taxes. However, Lord added that it would depend on if he took the tax deduction against his California income.
Lord surmised that the Tesla owner could have given the stock to middlemen-like groups called “donor-advised funds” and not actual charitable groups. The company did not make any statements about the November decision.
Musk’s public charity moves are way behind some in giving among the prominent billionaires. Forbes said billionaires Warren Buffett and George Soros gave away more than 20 percent of their net worth as of September. The wealthiest men globally, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Musk, have only given less than a percent of their wealth.
In 2001, his newly-created Musk Foundation pledged to offer grants for the “development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity,” among other causes.
Musk’s foundation has over $200 million in assets per the foundation’s website. Last year, the man and his charity offered $100 million to anyone who could figure out a technology to take carbon out of the atmosphere.
Other millions went to two Texas locations. He said he was giving $20 million to Cameron County Schools (the site of a SpaceX rocket launch site) and another $10 million to Brownsville.
