Elon Musk, the co-founder and CEO of Tesla, said on Twitter that he will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year.

According to Bloomberg News, if the billionaire exercises all of his options that are set to expire next year, he may face a tax bill of more than $10 billion in 2021.

Musk incurred the hefty tax burden after exercising over 15 million options and selling millions of shares to settle the taxes associated with those transactions.

The billionaire industrialist has been selling stock worth over $14 billion in recent weeks after launching a Twitter poll on whether he should sell 10% of his investment in the EV producer. Tesla’s stock has increased by more than 2.300% in the last five years.

Musk advocated this idea after hearing about affluent people storing unrealized earnings to avoid paying taxes.

He was criticizing the Democrats’ “billionaires’ tax,” which seeks donations from America’s wealthiest citizens by taxing their “tradable assets.”
The proposed levy is projected to contribute to the funding of US Vice President Joe Biden’s ambitious social policy and climate change legislation.

Mr Musk disclosed in September at the 2021 Code Conference that he planned to sell a large percentage of his stock in the fourth quarter. According to documents, he formed a pre-arranged trading strategy in the same month to carry out “an orderly selling of shares relating to the execution of stock options.” The existence of the proposal, however, was not revealed in the November 6 Twitter poll.

Musk, the world’s richest man according to the Bloomberg Billionaire index, has been chastised for not paying enough taxes.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of the United States tweeted last week that Musk should pay taxes instead of “freeloading off everyone else.”

Tesla’s CEO replied by claiming that he “will pay more taxes than any American in history this year.”

According to a June article by ProPublica, Mr Musk paid minimal income tax in comparison to his immense wealth. But he has retaliated, claiming that he does not receive a salary from SpaceX or Tesla and pays an effective tax rate of 53% on stock options he executes. He also stated that he expects the tax rate to rise next year.