Elon Musk says he will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year, the most in American history

As you may recall last week, we reported that Tesla CEO Elon Musk faces over $15 billion in taxes this year. This morning, Musk now confirmed the exact amount of tax he owed Uncle Sam, which may also include the state tax. In a tweet early this morning, Musk tweeted:

“For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year”

For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2021

The $11 billion is possibly the biggest in U.S. history if not the most in American history. It all started on November 6 after Musk launched a Twitter poll asking millions of his fans if he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla to pay billions in tax liability. About 24 hours later, 58% of Twitter poll respondents said Musk should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. Musk abided by the results and started selling millions of Tesla stocks.

As of last week, Musk had sold 10.1 million Tesla shares for nearly $11 billion. However, Reuters’ analysis showed that the $11 billion sales only represent about 5% of the 10% stake Musk pledged to sell on November 6. On Monday, Musk sold another $906 million worth of Tesla shares. As of Tuesday morning, Musk has sold a total of 11.9 million shares, according to InsiderScore/Verity.

The last two years have been the best year for Musk. For example, between 2014 and 2018, Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income, according to ProPublica, despite his wealth growing by $13.9 billion over that period.

In the meantime, to put Musk’s tax obligation into perspective, his $15 billion tax payment is larger than the GDP of each of the countries shown below.