Elon Musk donated over $5.7 billion in Tesla shares to charity in November

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has donated roughly $5.7 billion worth of the electric carmaker’s shares to charity.

The donation of 5,044,000 shares was revealed Monday in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The shares were gifted last year between November 19 and November 29, according to the filing, which did not name the recipient or recipients of the shares. Musk has established a foundation that makes grants in support of causes including pediatric research and science education.

Tesla’s stock was trading above $1,000 per share at the time of the donations. The donated shares were worth $5.7 billion based on the average of the highest and lowest quoted price on the date of the transaction.

Late last year, Musk sold $16.4 billion worth of shares after polling Twitter users about offloading 10% of his stake in the electric-car maker. He tweeted last year that he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 due to his exercise of stock options set to expire this year.

Analysts have said there would be a tax benefit for Musk potentially gifting Tesla stock. This is because shares that are donated to charity are not subject to capital gains tax, as they would be if they were sold.

“His tax benefit would be huge. He’d save between 40% and 50% of the $5.7 billion in tax, depending on whether he could take the deduction against his California income and he’d avoid the gains tax he would have to pay if he sold the stock,” Bob Lord, an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies who studies tax policy, said.