(Daily Wire) - In response to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s accusation of “freeloading,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk argued that he will pay more taxes than “any American in history” this year.
“Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” tweeted Warren in response to the announcement that Musk is Time’s Person of the Year.
“And if you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year,” responded Musk.
“Don’t spend it all at once … oh wait you did already,” added Musk.
In response to the same thread, Musk shared an article referencing Warren’s “lies about being Native American,” alongside the tweet, “Stop projecting!”
“You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason,” Musk continued. “Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.”
While Musk’s accusation of Warren’s “Karen” status may be up for debate, he could well be telling the truth about paying more taxes than any American in history this year.
“That’s because the Tesla CEO has been exercising a large number of options this year — and still has more to go,” explained Business Insider.
“The world’s richest person and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. could face a tax bill of more than $10 billion for 2021, if he exercises all his options due to expire next year,” reported Bloomberg. “While it’s hard to say whether that would be a record — the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t publicly reveal individual tax filings — it would certainly rank as one of the biggest payments of all time.”
“Musk faces the unusually high tax bill after exercising almost 15 million options and selling millions of shares to cover the taxes related to the transactions,” Bloomberg added.
This all follows the move by Musk in November to poll his Twitter followers, asking whether he should sell 10% of his stock holdings in the electric car company. The final results of the poll were 57.9% in favor, and 42.1% in opposition, with over 3.5 million votes cast.
“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted at the time. “Do you support this?”
“I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes,” Musk added later. “Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”
Tesla’s share price fell by 5% in early morning trading following the news. CNBC also reported that Musk may be facing a tax bill of more than $15 billion in the coming months in relation to stock options, and that “the looming tax bill makes a sale of Tesla stock this year likely regardless of the outcome of the Twitter vote.”
In October, Musk openly criticized the tax proposals being pushed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), saying, “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.”
By Ian Haworth
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