Tesla shares fall after Twitter users vote for Elon Musk to sell stock

(Reuters) – Tesla Inc shares fell 4.5% on Monday as investors prepared for its chief Elon Musk’s proposed sale of about a tenth of his holdings in the electric-car maker following his Twitter poll.

Musk, the world’s richest person, tweeted on Saturday that he would offload 10% of his stake if users of the social media network approved the proposal.

The Twitter poll asking Musk’s followers if he should sell stock garnered more than 3.5 million votes, and 57.9% of the people voted “Yes”.

Musk had previously said he would have to exercise a large number of stock options in the next three months, which would create a big tax bill. Selling some of his stock could free up funds to pay the taxes.