Elon Musk reached Bill Gates with a $1 billion donation

Warren Buffet is not alone in supporting Bill Gates company, Entrepreneur Elon Musk has hardly distinguished himself as a great benefactor until now and tends to invest his fortune in more and more new high-tech companies. But now he’s changing that and catapulting himself into a class with the former Gates family.

Musk already had shares in the electric car maker Tesla, which he founded last November, according to recently released documents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Delivered The stock transferred from his holdings to a charitable organization would have been worth $5.74 billion at the time. For the past year, Musk is now listed as the second-largest donor in the United States — Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates still rank first here. However, it is unclear to which organization the securities were transferred. In any case, that’s not what the SEC report says, and Musk himself has not provided any further information here either.

Big Tax Savings

Of course, the donation also has a favorable effect for the entrepreneur that a tax claim can be made on it. It must also have been necessary, as the massive appreciation of his personal stock holdings meant that exercising stock options in the Tesla group resulted in a tax liability of more than $11 billion in the first place.

As he explained at the time, he could not pay this from his normal salary but had to sell shares in order to meet the claims. However, the gift also lowers a considerable part of the income, which means that the tax claims are lower. Tax law experts in the US estimate that about half of the donated value is deducted from a person’s tax debt. This makes it interesting for many wealthy people in the US to donate money to charities.