Elon Musk attacks again on Twitter, and this time the victim is US Senator Bernie Sanders.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX responded to a tweet by the Democratic politician that the “extremely rich should pay a fair share of taxes.”
“I always forget you’re still alive,” Musk replied. “Want me to sell more shares, Bernie? Just say the words…” tweeted one hour later.
Elon Musk ended the week by selling a total of $6.9 billion worth of Tesla shares. This represented less than 4% of the shares he owns directly and less than 3% including all the options he has to buy additional shares.
The entrepreneur certainly qualifies as Sander’s description of “extremely rich” — he is the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $285 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Last week, Musk asked his Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla properties to pay taxes — 58% of voters in his poll said yes.
However, it is doubtful that the survey results were the main motivation for last week’s share sale.
Musk faces an imminent tax levy that will be triggered by his need to exercise 22.9 million stock options by next August. That bill would be nearly $10 billion at current market prices.
He may also have to pay California state income tax, which has a maximum rate of 13.3%.
Even though he lives in Texas, which does not charge state income tax, Elon Musk admitted that he may have to pay California taxes because he spends too much time working in the state.
Taxing large fortunes is part of Sanders’ project.
As chairman of the Senate budget committee, Sanders has proposed an annual tax on the 0.1% of American families, which he says will raise about $4.35 trillion over the next decade and cut billionaires’ wealth in half in 15 years old.
The senator also wants to implement fundamental oversight policies on wealth taxes.
Democrats have tried to impose more taxes on billionaires to fund US President Joe Biden’s vast social safety net plan.
“Whether the richest man in the world pays any tax or not shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter survey,” tweeted the Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon in response to Musk’s poll. “It’s Billionaires Income Tax time.”
Chris Isidore of CNN contributed to this report.
(Translated text. Read the original here)
Reference: CNN Brasil
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