Kenya Insights

Tag: Tesla

  • ‪YouTube Star Mr Beast Is Giving Away 26 Teslas For His Birthday, Here’s How To Win‬

    ‪YouTube Star Mr Beast Is Giving Away 26 Teslas For His Birthday, Here’s How To Win‬

    YouTube sensation Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast, is breaking the internet in marking his 26th birthday with an extravagant gesture, where he will be gifting away 26 Teslas.

    With over 256 million subscribers on YouTube, his channel is the second-most followed on the video sharing platform.

    The YouTuber is known for making popular giveaways and his extravagant philanthropy including in Kenya.

    Mr Beast in Kenya

    Previously, the YouTuber captured the hearts of Kenyans by revealing that he funded and participated in the drilling of 52 boreholes across Kenya. Mr Beast shared a compelling 10-minute video on his YouTube channel, showcasing his hands-on involvement in the borehole drilling process. The video quickly gained international attention, leading to a wave of praise for Mr Beast’s philanthropic endeavors.

    The announcement was made via MrBeast’s Instagram and other social media platforms, accompanied by a video showing him amidst 25 Tesla Model 3s and a lone Cybertruck, which serves as the grand prize.

    How to enter the competition

    Entering the contest is simple: comment on the original Instagram video and tag two friends. Donaldson will then randomly select 26 winners from the eligible participants.

    While there are some conditions to meet, they’re relatively minor. Participants must be residents of select countries including the U.S., Australia, Canada, and others listed. Additionally, entrants must be at least 18 years old, with Canadians and Mexicans needing to answer a skill-testing question to claim their prize.

    The entry period runs from May 7 to 11:59 ET on May 10, with winners set to be announced on May 14. Winners must follow MrBeast’s Instagram account for notification and may need to sign a release, given the nature of the giveaway.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/C6rHjijMrbr/?igsh=NHgycWV5ZDh4aTJk

    Notably, the contest is not sponsored by Tesla. Winners can choose between receiving the vehicle or a cash prize, with $39,000 for Model 3 recipients and $120,000 for the Cybertruck winner, as outlined in the contest guidelines.

  • Elon Musk Sells $5B In Tesla Stock After Twitter Poll

    Elon Musk Sells $5B In Tesla Stock After Twitter Poll

    Tesla chief executive Elon Musk has sold around $5bn (£3.7bn) of shares in the electric carmaker.

    It comes days after he asked his 63 million Twitter followers whether he should sell 10% of his stake in Tesla.

    The company’s shares fell by around 16% in the two days after the poll came out in favour of him selling shares, before regaining some ground on Wednesday.

    Tesla is the world’s most valuable carmaker, with a stock market valuation of more than $1tn.

    Mr Musk’s trust sold almost 3.6 million shares in Tesla, worth around $4bn.

    He also sold another 934,000 shares for about $1.1bn after exercising options to acquire nearly 2.2 million shares, according to filings with the US stock market regulator.

    The documents showed that the sale of about a fifth of the shares was made based on a pre-arranged trading plan set up in September, long before Mr Musk’s social media posts at the weekend about selling some of his shares.

    However, the regulatory filings also showed that the sale of the remainder of the shares had not been scheduled.

    On Saturday, Mr Musk posted a Twitter poll asking his followers to vote on whether he should sell part of his stake in Tesla to meet his tax obligations.

    “Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he tweeted.

    “I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes.”

    The poll attracted more than 3.5 million votes, with nearly 58% voting in favour of the share sale.

    Mr Musk also highlighted that he is not paid in cash by Tesla: “I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”

    Part of the latest transaction saw him exercising stock options that he was awarded by the carmaker in 2012 as part of his pay package.

    Such transactions trigger income taxes, which are typically settled using money raised from immediately selling some of the newly acquired shares.

    It was his first sale of shares since 2016, when he last exercised stock options. At the time he also sold some of the shares to cover an income tax bill of close to $600m.

    Mr Musk is the world’s richest personworld’s richest person, with a personal fortune estimated to be more than $280bn.

  • Elon Musk Eclipses $200 Billion To Become Richest Person In The World Again

    Elon Musk Eclipses $200 Billion To Become Richest Person In The World Again

    Elon Musk became the third person to ever be worth $200 billion on Monday, riding a surging Tesla stock that in turn made him the richest person in the world.

    His milestone feat follows Amazon founder and space rival Jeff Bezos, who first reached the $200 billion mark in August 2020, and luxury magnate Bernard Arnault, who did so for a short time last month. Shares of Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla continued a four-month rally, closing up 2.2% at $791.36, the highest they’ve been since February this year. Musk became $3.8 billion richer on Monday and was worth $203.4 billion at the close of markets. He surpasses Bezos, whose fortune fell by $1 billion Monday to $197.7 billion due to a 0.6%  decline in Amazon stock.

    Musk is even richer now than he was at Tesla’s peak in January—when he briefly became the world’s richest tycoon for the first time—because he’s received additional stock option grants that have increased his stake in Tesla; he has about 73.5 million Tesla options worth about $53 billion. Musk owns more than one-fifth of Tesla; Forbes discounts a portion of this stake to account for shares he has pledged as collateral for loans.

    Musk’s fortune is heavily tied to his ownership of Tesla, which ended the day Monday with a market cap of more than $792 billion, and SpaceX, which was valued at $74 billion after a funding round in February. After promising last year that he would ditch almost all his personal possessions, including six mansions, he now owns one house and counts his primary residence to be a 400-square foot rental unit.

    Shares in Tesla rocketed up more than 720% in 2020, helping to increase Musk’s net worth by more than $125 billion in a year. After trading places with Bezos as the world’s richest person for several days in January, Tesla stock began to decline. By April, Musk was surpassed by Arnault as well. The unusually frequent shuffling atop the billionaire leaderboard continued last month, when Musk became second richest again, trailing only Bezos.

    The two, who head competing rocket companies—SpaceX for Musk, Blue Origin for Bezos—have also traded banter over their billionaire space race. Last month, tensions spilled over into a lawsuit by Blue Origin against the federal government to dispute a $2.9 billion NASA contract that was awarded to SpaceX.