Musk donates almost $2bn of Tesla shares to charity

Tesla boss Elon Musk says he donated around $1.95bn worth of shares in his electric carmaker to charity in 2022.

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, the Twitter owner said that towards the end of 2023 would be a "good time" to find someone to succeed him as the chief executive of the social media platform.

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 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".

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 is working too much as he juggles his responsibilities as Twitter, Tesla, and his 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.