Elon Musk has donated $5.7 billion in Tesla 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.

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.

The charitable giving would make Musk the second biggest US donor in 2021. Tesla’s CEO trails only Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates, who gave $15 billion last year, in an annual ranking by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Previous securities filings show that Musk sold Tesla shares worth over $16 billion in the final two months of 2021, with most of the proceeds going to pay an estimated $11 billion US federal tax bill. Donated shares are not subject to capital gains tax and their value could be used as a deduction to help offset the tax bill.