More than 3.5 million people have participated in a vote on tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Twitter account.

Mr. Musk said he would “abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes” before it closed. The vote comes in response to the “billionaires tax” proposed by democrats.

The proposal to tax billionaires’ stocks and other tradeable assets seeks to fill a loophole that has allowed them to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely. This means – if the bill goes through – that people like Musk will face huge tax bills.

Musk posted in a tweet as he shared the poll: “Much is made lately of unrealized (sic) gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?”

Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock.

Do you support this?

— Lorde Edge (@elonmusk) November 6, 2021

With over 3.5m votes, 57.9 of participants have said Musk should sell 10% of his 170.5 million shares – around $21bn (£16bn) worth.

Musk’s reasoning behind the proposed share sell comes from the fact that, according to him, he does not take a cash salary or bonus “from anywhere” and only has stock, adding: “Thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”

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But it should be noted that Musk has made billions of dollars through a compensation package, which gives him power to exercise large amounts of stock options when the company meets performance targets and its shares hit certain prices.

Including stock options, Musk owns a 23% stake in Tesla, the world’s most valuable car company whose market value recently exceeded $1tn (£741bn).