Musk sells stocks to pay 70 billion sky-high taxes, Tesla's market value has evaporated by 1.9 trillion

Exercising options to make Musk pay high tax bills

　　Last week, U.S. Congressman Elizabeth Warren attacked Time magazine’s selection of Musk as the Person of the Year. Elizabeth Warren tweeted that the U.S. tax law is too easy to be manipulated, so that the man of the year cannot really pay taxes.

　　It is understood that Elizabeth Warren has been actively advocating higher taxes on the wealthy and their assets for a long time.

　　In this regard, Musk said that he will pay more taxes this year than anyone in American history. Musk wrote in a tweet: "I can tell those who are curious that I will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year."

According to statistics, if Musk exercises all the options that expire in 2022, he will face huge taxes of more than $10 billion in 2021. In the past few weeks, Musk has exercised nearly 15 million options and sold Tesla stock worth nearly $14 billion .

　　According to Forbes estimates, Musk is expected to pay more than $8.2 billion in taxes for the stock he sold in 2021, and the final tax bill may be more than that. Although he moved from California to Texas in 2020, California, his former tax residence, may tax the options he received while living there. Including state taxes and federal taxes, Musk's overall tax rate may exceed 50%.

　　In January of this year, Musk surpassed Amazon founder Bezos to become the world's richest man for the first time. Since then, the two have exchanged positions on the rich list many times. But in October, Musk’s SpaceX completed a second share sale, with a valuation exceeding 100 billion U.S. dollars. His personal worth exceeded 200 billion U.S. dollars. After that, as Tesla’s stock price soared, Musk’s worth was once closer. 300 billion U.S. dollars, reaching a height that Bezos can't match.

　　As Musk's wealth surged, he also replaced Bezos as the number one target of the US "Billionaire Tax" plan.

　　Tesla's electric car "dominant" status or shaken

　　Although he will pay a huge amount of tax, Musk was sued by investors. The reason is that in November this year, Musk initiated a poll on Twitter to ask netizens whether he wants to reduce Tesla shares. Sla's stock price plummeted.

　Investors asked to view Tesla’s internal documents to investigate whether Musk’s November 6th voting on the dumping of stocks violated the relevant agreement reached with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

　　Public data shows that as of December 18, Musk sold a total of about 14 billion US dollars (about 90 billion yuan) of Tesla stock. And Tesla's stock price has fallen 22% during the same period.

　　As of the close on December 17, local time, Tesla’s stock price closed at US$932.57, up 0.61%, and the total market value was US$936.5 billion, which was a total market value of US$1.23 trillion from the closing of the last trading day before Musk initiated the voting on November 5th. A reduction of nearly 300 billion US dollars (approximately 1.9 trillion yuan).

　　In this regard, Guggenheim analyst Ali Fagri warned that Tesla bulls should not take it for granted that Tesla's market dominance will not be weakened.

　　In Fagri's view, Tesla seems to have lost market share as traditional car companies began to transform to electric vehicles. Experian's data shows that Tesla's share of electric vehicles on the market in the second quarter of this year fell from 79.5% in the same period last year to 66.3%. The share of Chevrolet under General Motors increased from 8.3% to 9.6%, and the share of Ford , Nissan and Audi also increased.

　　Fagri gave Tesla a "Neutral" rating and a target stock price of $925. He said in a note to customers: "Our view of Tesla is: 1) As demand exceeds supply, we Seeing that in 2022 and 2023, with the commissioning of new factories in Austin and Berlin, Tesla’s sales still have room for growth; 2) Compared with all current OEMs, Tesla has more competitive advantages , including a high degree of verticality. Integration, software-defined vehicle methods, dedicated charging networks, and larger battery capacity. 3) The competition from traditional companies and new pure electric vehicle companies is becoming increasingly fierce, so we believe that Tesla’s share of the global electric vehicle market is It may drop from the current high, especially after 2023, because competitors have expanded their production capacity."