Billionaire Elon Musk, who also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Tesla, donated $1.9 billion worth of Tesla shares to charities last year, according to a report in Forbes citing a regulatory filing. Mr Musk, the second-richest man in the world with a net worth of $194 billion, now owns about 13 per cent of Tesla.
According to the filing, Mr Musk gave out around $11.6 million shares between August and December last year. However, the recipients of the shares were not named in the filing. It was further stated that the billionaire gave over 70 per cent of his shares in a span of three days in December.
Additionally, Mr Musk sold nearly $23 billion worth of his shares in the car company during the course of 2022 to support the buyout of Twitter. The social networking company was purchased by the billionaire last October in a $44 billion deal.
In December, the CEO had declared that he won't sell any more shares of the electric vehicle manufacturer for around two years. In a discussion on Twitter Spaces, Mr Musk predicted that there would be a "severe recession" in the economy in 2023. "I won't sell stock until, I don't know, probably two years from now. Definitely not next year under any circumstances and probably not the year thereafter," Mr Musk had said at that time.
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As per the outlet, Tesla's stock experienced its worst annual performance on record last year, dropping 65 per cent. It further wiped out over $675 billion in market value. Due to the same, French billionaire Bernard Arnault replaced Elon Musk as the world's richest person in December.
