Elon Musk asked Twitter to decide on his tax bill. An outrage? Sure. But ask yourself who’s really at fault

Musk asked his followers whether he should sell a chunk of his shares and pay tax on the proceeds. They said yes and he appears to have confirmed it will go ahead. A Democratic senator has called the affair outrageous, but it is the inaction of lawmakers that let it happen

Tesla founder Elon Musk asked Twitter whether he should sell 10 per cent of his shares and pay tax on the gains (AP)

Ready for the great Tesla selloff? It’s apparently coming. Elon Musk has tweeted as much.

We’ll get into that in a moment, but first the background: Never one to miss an opportunity to draw attention to himself, the tycoon waded into the debate about how to tax the world’s billionaires by launching a Twitter poll among his 62.5m followers which asked them whether he should sell a sizeable chunk (10 per cent) of his car maker’s shares.

This would realise a sizeable capital gain for Musk which he would, in theory, be required to pay a sizeable amount of tax on.