'This country made him rich -- he owes us': Elon Musk blasted for attack on billionaire tax
Julia Conley, Common Dreams
October 29, 2021
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk (pictured December 2020) (AFP)
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk drew outrage Thursday after publicly complaining that his vast wealth would be further taxed under a new proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, aimed at raising revenue to pay for social supports under the Build Back Better Act.
As Democrats continued debating what would be included in the plan—which the majority of party members want to provide paid family leave to workers, far-reaching climate action and green jobs, Medicare reforms to allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices, and other provisions—Musk tweeted about Wyden's proposal.
"Eventually, they run out of other people's money and then they come for you," he said earlier this week, adding on Wednesday evening that "spending is the real problem" contributing to the national debt, rather than the failure of corporations and the richest Americans to pay a fair tax rate.
Musk's comments caught the attention of economic justice advocates including Patriotic Millionaires—the coalition of wealthy Americans who believe they should be taxed at a much higher rate to help narrow the wealth gap—which noted the Tesla founder himself relied on "other people's money" to build his empire.
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"Millions of hard-working people who do their part for the country every day, while entitled 'technokings' like Elon Musk shirk their most basic responsibilities."
"Elon Musk was born with an emerald spoon in his mouth, and when he needed more money for his various schemes, he turned to U.S. taxpayers for billions of dollars of subsidies and direct handouts," said Erica Payne, president and founder of Patriotic Millionaires.
Musk's companies—Tesla, SolarCity Corp., and SpaceX—received an estimated $4.9 billion in federal funding as of 2015 via subsidies and direct grants from the Treasury Department.
"Government support is a theme of all three of these companies, and without it none of them would be around," hedge fund manager Mark Spiegel, whose firm shorted Tesla's stock, told the Los Angeles Times in 2015.
Musk's companies also "rely on a workforce educated by public tax dollars and a physical, legal and economic infrastructure built, maintained, and paid for by American taxpayers," Payne said.
"It's too bad we can't tax egos," she added. "We could pay off the entire federal debt with a miniscule tax on this guy's overblown opinion of himself."
Payne's disdain was echoed by political observers.
Musk's opposition to Wyden's Billionaires' Income Tax—which would apply to about 700 taxpayers with over $1 billion in assets or more than $100 million in income for three consecutive years, and would impose an annual tax on tradable assets, whether or not they are sold—shows why the proposal is needed, wrote Greg Sargent at The Washington Post.
The billionaires' tax would also address glaring flaws in our tax code that deserve attention in their own right: They've driven soaring inequality and badly unbalanced our political economy. Fixing these would itself confer major benefits, irrespective of helping "pay for" Democratic investments.
Musk's opposition helps illustrate this. Like many other rich people, his extreme wealth is partly the creation of government investment undertaken for the public good. But he's also perfectly happy to protect that wealth from fair taxation in ways that deprive the government of revenue for other socially beneficial investments, just as many other billionaires are.
On Twitter, Sargent wrote that according to Musk, government investments in companies like his own are "good and visionary" while investing in an expanded child tax credit, paid family leave, and other anti-poverty initiatives are equal to "bad taking" of public resources.
In response to Musk's comments, as Democrats continued their negotiations on Thursday, Patriotic Millionaires sent a mobile billboard around Capitol Hill, displaying an image of Musk and the text: "Elon Musk: 300 billion more reasons to tax the rich."
The billboard also mocked what the group called Musk's "baffling decision to change his title at Tesla to 'Technoking'," displaying an image of the billionaire with the text "Techno 'Mooch' King."
"Musk paid a 3.27% tax rate on $13.9 billion in gains between 2014 and 2018. Since then, Musk has earned over a hundred billion dollars more, and paid even less on those gains," said Payne. "Someone earning just $25,000 a year in income pays a top rate of 12%, almost four times what he paid. Millions of hard-working people who do their part for the country every day, while entitled 'technokings' like Elon Musk shirk their most basic responsibilities."
"This country made him rich," she added. "He owes us."
Just 2% of Elon Musk’s wealth could help solve world hunger, UN says
Thomas Kingsley
Wed, October 27, 2021
Elon Musk’s company Tesla recently passed $1 trillion in market value (AP)
A small group of billionaires could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their wealth, the United Nations has said.
UN food chief David Beasley, director of the World Food Programme, called on wealthy individuals to “step up now, on a one-time basis” - specifically naming the world’s two richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
He said that $6 billion would help 42 million feed people who are “literally going to die if we don’t reach them”, adding: “It’s not complicated”.
According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk has a net worth of nearly $289 billion (£209 billion), with his company Tesla reaching $1 trillion in market value earlier this week, the second fastest company to reach the mark.
CNN said that Musk would have to donate just 2 per cent of his wealth to help save people from hunger.
Beasley told the broadcaster that the world is currently facing “a perfect storm of conflict, climate change and Covid”, which he said means many nations are “knocking on famine’s door”.
A UN report earlier this year stated that world hunger had reached a 15-year-high in 2020, with the pandemic reversing years of progress in global malnutrition.
Half of Afghanistan’s 22.8 million population face a hunger crisis according to a report from the UN World Food Programme. The Taliban-ruled nation faces soaring unemployment and a liquidity crisis, leaving the country on the edge of a humanitarian crisis which would leave 3.2 million children under five years old at risk.
Beasley’s comments come following his direct tweet to Musk last week congratulating him for passing Bezos as the world’s richest person, but also calling on the Tesla boss to help save millions from starvation.
He wrote: “Congratulations to @elonmusk for passing up @JeffBezos as the world’s richest person - worth a whopping $221B! Elon, to celebrate I’m offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity: help us save 42M people from starvation for just $6.6B!! Offer expires SOON.. and lives do too.”
Musk recently announced plans for his company SpaceX to launch its next-generation Starship SN20 rocket next month after successfully testing its deep space Raptor Vacuum engine.
The launch will be the first orbital flight for the Mars-bound craft, which is being built to transport people and cargo around the Solar System.
Thomas Kingsley
Wed, October 27, 2021
Elon Musk’s company Tesla recently passed $1 trillion in market value (AP)
A small group of billionaires could help solve world hunger with just a fraction of their wealth, the United Nations has said.
UN food chief David Beasley, director of the World Food Programme, called on wealthy individuals to “step up now, on a one-time basis” - specifically naming the world’s two richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
He said that $6 billion would help 42 million feed people who are “literally going to die if we don’t reach them”, adding: “It’s not complicated”.
According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk has a net worth of nearly $289 billion (£209 billion), with his company Tesla reaching $1 trillion in market value earlier this week, the second fastest company to reach the mark.
CNN said that Musk would have to donate just 2 per cent of his wealth to help save people from hunger.
Beasley told the broadcaster that the world is currently facing “a perfect storm of conflict, climate change and Covid”, which he said means many nations are “knocking on famine’s door”.
A UN report earlier this year stated that world hunger had reached a 15-year-high in 2020, with the pandemic reversing years of progress in global malnutrition.
Half of Afghanistan’s 22.8 million population face a hunger crisis according to a report from the UN World Food Programme. The Taliban-ruled nation faces soaring unemployment and a liquidity crisis, leaving the country on the edge of a humanitarian crisis which would leave 3.2 million children under five years old at risk.
Beasley’s comments come following his direct tweet to Musk last week congratulating him for passing Bezos as the world’s richest person, but also calling on the Tesla boss to help save millions from starvation.
He wrote: “Congratulations to @elonmusk for passing up @JeffBezos as the world’s richest person - worth a whopping $221B! Elon, to celebrate I’m offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity: help us save 42M people from starvation for just $6.6B!! Offer expires SOON.. and lives do too.”
Musk recently announced plans for his company SpaceX to launch its next-generation Starship SN20 rocket next month after successfully testing its deep space Raptor Vacuum engine.
The launch will be the first orbital flight for the Mars-bound craft, which is being built to transport people and cargo around the Solar System.
Elon Musk to Congress: Drop the billionaire tax. It will only mess with ‘my plan to get humanity to Mars’
Sophie Mellor
Thu, October 28, 2021
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, took to Twitter overnight to savage the so-called billionaire tax proposal that's dividing Washington over ideological lines and is dominating the discourse on social media too.
The tax idea, which would target the 700 richest U.S. taxpayers, was dreamed up to finance President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” campaign, which carries a number of historic investments around childcare, education, health care, and combating climate change. The Democrat-led proposal, though, is facing stiff blowback in Congress—not just from Republicans but also from more moderate Democrats.
The thorniest part of the "billionaire tax" is a 23.8% tax rate on the long-term capital gains on tradable assets. As it currently stands, it would be levied only on billionaires who either earn more than $100 million in annual income or have $1 billion in assets. It would be a radical rewrite of the tax code, which currently taxes assets like shares in companies only when they're bought or sold. The new policy would treat billionaires’ fortunes like business income, and tax their assets on a mark-to-market basis each year.
Such a move would hit hard tech titans like Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Musk has been the most vocal of the bunch. Again on Wednesay he tweeted out warnings that a tax on billionaires would only make a small dent in the federal deficit. Washington, he ominously added, would eventually come after the general public too. “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” he tweeted.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1453479688832180228
He tweeted today what he intends to use the money on.
"My plan is to use the money to get humanity to Mars and preserve the light of consciousness."
Criticisms
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's personal wealth is nearing $300 billion, a 72% year-to-date gain that's fueled by a bull run in Tesla stocks and his stake in the rocket-manufacturing company SpaceX. Bezos, at $196 billion, is a distant second.
Musk's vocal opposition comes as tax watchdogs take aim at the ultrawealthy's use of the tax code to shield their fortune from the full tax rate. For example, Musk paid $455 million in income tax between 2014 and 2018, according to IRS data reported by ProPublica.
On Twitter, progressive-minded commentators remind Musk that Tesla has been highly reliant upon government stimulus spending through the years. For example, the electric-vehicle maker received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Energy Department back in 2010 and more recently took a $2.9 billion contract from NASA in 2019 to build a moon lander.
https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1452823743408087040
In the end, it may be Democrats, and not billionaires, who ultimately kill the billionaire tax bill.
The loudest Democrat critic is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who told reporters, “I don’t like it. I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people.” He also praised billionaires’ contribution to society by creating jobs and through their philanthropic pursuits.
Meanwhile, Mark Warner, the second richest senator with a net worth of $215 million, said that it made sense that the “absolute wealthiest Americans pay a fair share.” But he also noted the “devil is in the details” and it was crucial to not favor “one asset class over another.”
Sophie Mellor
Thu, October 28, 2021
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, took to Twitter overnight to savage the so-called billionaire tax proposal that's dividing Washington over ideological lines and is dominating the discourse on social media too.
The tax idea, which would target the 700 richest U.S. taxpayers, was dreamed up to finance President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion “Build Back Better” campaign, which carries a number of historic investments around childcare, education, health care, and combating climate change. The Democrat-led proposal, though, is facing stiff blowback in Congress—not just from Republicans but also from more moderate Democrats.
The thorniest part of the "billionaire tax" is a 23.8% tax rate on the long-term capital gains on tradable assets. As it currently stands, it would be levied only on billionaires who either earn more than $100 million in annual income or have $1 billion in assets. It would be a radical rewrite of the tax code, which currently taxes assets like shares in companies only when they're bought or sold. The new policy would treat billionaires’ fortunes like business income, and tax their assets on a mark-to-market basis each year.
Such a move would hit hard tech titans like Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Musk has been the most vocal of the bunch. Again on Wednesay he tweeted out warnings that a tax on billionaires would only make a small dent in the federal deficit. Washington, he ominously added, would eventually come after the general public too. “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you,” he tweeted.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1453479688832180228
He tweeted today what he intends to use the money on.
"My plan is to use the money to get humanity to Mars and preserve the light of consciousness."
Criticisms
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's personal wealth is nearing $300 billion, a 72% year-to-date gain that's fueled by a bull run in Tesla stocks and his stake in the rocket-manufacturing company SpaceX. Bezos, at $196 billion, is a distant second.
Musk's vocal opposition comes as tax watchdogs take aim at the ultrawealthy's use of the tax code to shield their fortune from the full tax rate. For example, Musk paid $455 million in income tax between 2014 and 2018, according to IRS data reported by ProPublica.
On Twitter, progressive-minded commentators remind Musk that Tesla has been highly reliant upon government stimulus spending through the years. For example, the electric-vehicle maker received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Energy Department back in 2010 and more recently took a $2.9 billion contract from NASA in 2019 to build a moon lander.
https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1452823743408087040
In the end, it may be Democrats, and not billionaires, who ultimately kill the billionaire tax bill.
The loudest Democrat critic is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who told reporters, “I don’t like it. I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people.” He also praised billionaires’ contribution to society by creating jobs and through their philanthropic pursuits.
Meanwhile, Mark Warner, the second richest senator with a net worth of $215 million, said that it made sense that the “absolute wealthiest Americans pay a fair share.” But he also noted the “devil is in the details” and it was crucial to not favor “one asset class over another.”
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