Bitcoin hodler Elon Musk should sell $23B of Tesla stock, Twitter survey concludes

Bitcoin (BTC) fan, Tesla CEO and world's richest man Elon Musk says he will sell 10% of Tesla stock (TSLA) — if Twitter tells him to.

In a Twitter survey on Nov. 6, Musk entered the debate on United States tax policy by offering to test it with a sale currently worth $23 billion.

Twitter tells Musk to sell $TSLA

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen caused a stir this year by arguing that the government should tax unrealized gains as part of a plan targeting "exceptionally rich" taxpayers.

Bitcoin proponents immediately turned out against the proposal, as it implies calculations that are all but impossible to apply to cryptocurrency, aside from moral concerns.

Musk, whose portfolio includes Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and Dogecoin (DOGE), avoided direct criticism, instead promising to sell 10% of his Tesla stock if the survey results told him to.

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

He added that he receives no "cash salary or bonus from anywhere," and the sale would thus amount to his only taxable event.

At the time of writing Sunday, 57% of the survey's 3.2 million respondents had said that he should go ahead with the sale — 19.3 million TSLA shares at $1,222 each, as per Friday's closing price — a total of $23,582,600,000.

A timely sell-off?

As Cointelegraph reported, recent gains in both Tesla stock and the company's $1.5 billion BTC holdings pushed Musk's net worth over a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Related: Elon Musk-named memecoin ‘Dogelon Mars’ gains nearly 4,000% in October

In October, he warned over inflation, which he sees persisting beyond the short term.

Economic decisions from the world's richest man have previously unsettled Bitcoin markets, notably when Tesla halted Bitcoin payments for its vehicles over the cryptocurrency's environmental credentials. 

As Cointelegraph noted, documents shows that the door remains open for the decision to be reversed.

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