On Tuesday, Elon Musk again made clear on Twitter his opinion of the new tax plans of the US government, which wants to tax large assets even if these assets are tied to other values. Musk responded to a tweet of complaint from Cardano entrepreneur Rick McCracken:
“At some point, we run out of other people’s money and then they come to you,” Musk said, a little annoyed. From the point of view of billionaires, the anger is understandable, because the billionaire tax proposed by the American Democrats will severely affect the ten richest Americans.
The Washington Post I calculated that Musk alone would have to pay a total of about $50 billion in taxes over the first five years of taxes – and these were calculations before Musk’s recent wealth jump. Thus, the 50 billion is tied to a fortune of approximately $200 billion. For former Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post calculated just under 44 billion projected taxes.
On Thursday, Musk explained on Twitter what he was doing with his own assets Bloomberg Current Billionaires List It has exceeded $300 billion, and would rather do more than pay taxes on it.
“My plan is to use the money to bring humanity to Mars and preserve the light of consciousness.” This reasoning should cause some amusement for most tax officials around the world. But he who knows musk knows: he means serious. He really wants to make humanity a species that lives on multiple planets. The highly successful series founder has made this clear over and over again in recent years.
To Matthias Dobfner, CEO of the Axel Springer Group, he had in an interview Last December, he revealed that he wanted to spend as much money as possible on colonizing Mars. To do this, he sells his material possessions. After all, any city on Mars needs “a lot of resources,” Musk Dobfner said, and he intends to “contribute as much as possible to the city.” This means that it only needs “a lot of capital”.
As early as May 2020, Mask Via his favorite service Twitter He states that he intends to sell “almost all material possessions” and “not own a home.” He followed the announcement with action and sold all but one of the homes in the California Bay Area by late summer.
In addition to his interplanetary plans, Elon Musk also suspects that taxing the super-rich will have any positive effect on the general public.
“The national debt of the United States is approximately $28,900 billion, or about $229,000 per taxpayer,” Musk said in a tweet on Wednesday. “Even if all ‘billionaires’ were taxed at 100 per cent, this would only result in a slight reduction in that number, so of course the rest would have to come from the general public. The real problem is government spending policy.
Elon Musk probably won’t have to worry about tax plans. Because billionaire tax plans are already facing resistance within the Democratic Party itself.
Meanwhile, Musk’s fortune is growing rapidly. Car rental company Hertz’s announcement of its interest in ordering up to 150,000 Teslas gave the stock a boost this week and pushed its personal fortune above the $300 billion mark.
However, this should only be a grind to mill his critics. Because they demand louder and louder that the billionaire should also use his wealth to participate in solving earthly problems. “It’s not complicated,” the head of the United Nations World Food Program, David Beasley, told CNN.
Others point out that Musk’s various companies have grown in part at taxpayer costs, including billions in grants, loans and government contracts. NASA’s contract to develop a lunar module alone went to Musk’s SpaceX for $2.9 billion. For Tesla’s planned battery plant in Grünheide, Brandenburg, there is public funding of over €1.1 billion.
Musk will surely respond to this criticism that interplanetary fulfillment is the best thing he can do for humanity – so charitable causes drive his actions anyway. However, in democratic societies, representatives of the people usually decide to use taxpayers’ money, and not the taxpayers themselves.
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The life of Elon Musk in pictures
