Elon Musk donates almost $2bn of Tesla shares to charity

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk says he donated around $1.95bn (£1.6bn) worth of shares in his electric carmaker to charity last year.

The donation of 11.6 million shares was described in a filing with US regulators as "a bona fide gift".

The filing did not name the recipient, or recipients, of the donation.

Also on Wednesday, Mr Musk said that towards the end of this year would be a "good time" to find someone to succeed him as the chief executive of Twitter.

The document lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed the donation was made between August and December last year.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

It is not the first time Mr Musk, who has an estimated net worth of $197.5bn, has given Tesla stock to charity. He donated around $5.74bn worth of shares in 2021, according to a regulatory filing.

He also said on Twitter that year, that he planned to donate $20m to schools in Cameron County and $10m to the city of Brownsville in Texas for "downtown revitalization".

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Mr Musk has also hinted that he plans to find his successor as chief executive of Twitter by the end of 2023.

"I'm guessing probably towards the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company, because I think it should be in a stable position around, you know, at the end of this year," he said.

"I think I need to stabilise the organisation and just make sure it's in a financially healthy place and that the product roadmap is clearly laid out," he said on a video link at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

The multi-billionaire businessman bought the social media platform last year for $44bn. He has since said the company was close to bankruptcy.

However, he has been criticised by some Tesla investors for spending too much of his time focussing on trying to turn around Twitter.

In November, addressing the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, Mr Musk said he was working too much as he juggled his responsibilities at Twitter, Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.

"My workload has recently increased quite a lot," Mr Musk said. "I have too much work on my plate, that is for sure," he added.

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