Elon Musk is the world's wealthiest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Elon Musk sold about $687 million worth of Tesla shares on Thursday, according to SEC filings. This was on top of the $5 billion worth of shares he sold earlier in the week. That totals more than 5.1 millions shares sold this week.
Last weekend, the electric car company CEO polled his Twitter followers about whether he should sell stock in order to pay his taxes. Nearly 58% of the more than 3.5 million people who voted said that, yes, he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. Musk pledged to honor the poll's results. However, Musk had already planned the sale of at least some of the shares ahead of the poll, MarketWatch reported.
Musk is the richest person on the planet, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a net worth of $294 billion as of Friday.
In June, ProPublica reported that Musk and other moguls have structured their pay to avoid income, allowing them to build their wealth into the billions while paying virtually no federal taxes. The activity isn't against the law, the investigative site noted, but reveals how the uber-wealthy minimize taxes, including through loans they take out using their stock holdings as collateral.
Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
