Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, stated that he made a charitable contribution of around $1.95 billion (£1.6 billion) worth of shares in his electric vehicle manufacturer in 2017.
In a document that was submitted to US regulators, the donation of 11.6 million shares was referred to as “a genuine gift.”
The name(s) of the person(s) who will receive the donation was not included in the application.
Also, on Wednesday, Mr. Musk stated that around the end of this year would be a “good moment” to select someone to succeed him as the chief executive officer of Twitter. He made this statement on both Wednesday and Thursday.
According to the document that was submitted to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the donation was made between the months of August and December of the previous year.
The BBC reached out to Tesla for comment, but the company did not immediately respond.
It is not the first time that Mr. Musk has donated stock in Tesla to a charitable organization. According to a filing with the regulatory agency in 2021, he gave away shares valued at approximately $5.74 billion at the time.
During the same year, he also announced on Twitter that he intended to provide a total of $30 million to schools located in Cameron County, Texas, and $10 million to the city of Brownsville, Texas, for “downtown redevelopment.”
Mr. Musk has also provided hints that he intends to identify his replacement as chief executive officer of Twitter before the end of the year 2023.
He stated, “I think it should be in a secure position around, you know, the end of this year. I’m estimating probably around the end of this year would be ideal time to find someone else to lead the company.” He predicted that a suitable time to hire a new CEO would be “probably toward the end of this year.“
On a video connection shown at the World Government Summit in Dubai, he said, “I think I need to stabilize the company and make sure it is financially stable, in addition to laying out the product strategy.”
The businessman worth several billions of dollars purchased the social networking site for $44 billion the previous year. Since then, he has stated that the business was dangerously near to going bankrupt.
However, he has been criticized by some Tesla investors for devoting an excessive amount of his time to attempting to turn Twitter around.
Mr. Musk admitted in November that he was putting in too much effort while balancing his obligations at Twitter, Tesla, and the rocket business SpaceX. He made this admission while speaking at the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.
Mr. Musk stated, “My workload has suddenly increased quite a lot,” and went on to explain further. “I have too much work to do,” he said.