OREANDA-NEWS. Shares of electric car maker Tesla were down 6.6 percent at the premarket on November 8 and were trading at $1141.39 a share as of 12:17 a.m. Moscow time, NASDAQ stock exchange data showed.

On the Mosbirsk Exchange, quotations fell to a low of ₽79,020 per share, down 8.1 per cent from Friday's close on November 5.

The decline in the maker's shares began on news of Tesla CEO Ilon Musk's impending sale of a large stake in the company. The Tesla chief launched a poll on Twitter over the weekend asking users if he should sell 10% of the company shares he owns to pay taxes.

"There has been too much talk lately about unrealised profits being a means of tax evasion, so I suggest selling 10% of my Tesla shares,"- Musk wrote.

The businessman stressed that he does not receive his salary in cash or bonuses and his entire fortune exists in the form of shares. "So the only way for me personally to pay taxes is to sell shares,"- Ilon Musk wrote in comments to the survey. He also said he would submit to any result of the poll.

A majority of the 3.5 million Twitter users who took the poll - 57.9% - supported the idea of selling shares, while 42.1% were against it.

Reuters noted that Ilon Musk owned about 170.5 million Tesla shares as of 30 June. At the close of trading on Friday, one share of the company was worth $1222. So 10% of the stake owned by Musk is worth almost $21 billion, the publication estimated.

Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's fortune is valued at $338 billion - far more than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ($202 billion), who is in second place. Options account for about a quarter of Musk's fortune. He received them in 2012 and 2018. In 2020, according to Forbes calculations, Musk received options on Tesla stock worth $11 billion.