Gary Zhou 
A recent Tesla filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has revealed that the company’s CEO Elon Musk has donated more the $5 billion worth of Tesla stock to charity. The Ownership Disclosure filing was published earlier this month on the SEC website.
The Form 5 filing reveals that Elon Musk transferred a total of 5,044,000 shares of Tesla common stock to a trust. These shares were transferred in 5 transactions as listed below. All of these transactions were completed in November 2021.
Since there is no specific charity mentioned in the SEC filing, it’s possible that this money could have gone to the Musk Foundation. The Musk Foundation website lists the following sectors where it utilizes its grants: renewable energy research and advocacy, human space exploration research and advocacy, pediatric research, science and engineering education, and development of safe artificial intelligence to benefit humanity.
Due to the fact that the share price of Tesla fluctuates, the amount of this donation has gyrated above and below the $5 billion mark. Regardless, this looks to be one of the largest charity amounts donated by any one individual in history.
At the time these donation tranches were going to charity, Elon Musk was getting media attention for not paying taxes on unrealized gains (on Tesla stock). However, Elon Musk announced that he was going to be selling around 10% of his Tesla shares to pay over $11 billion in taxes in 2021.
A total of $11 billion in taxes plus $5 billion in charity makes Elon Musk one of the top individual contributors to the U.S. economy, if not the #1 contributor.
Last year, the Musk Foundation gave out two major grants as well. The charity gave $5 million to Khan Academy for making education accessible for everyone and $50 million to the Inspiration4 civilian space mission fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
Written by Iqtidar Ali. An earlier version of this article was originally published by Tesla Oracle. Revised update edited by EVANNEX.
