US Senator slams Elon Musk over Twitter poll, says 'time for Billionaire Income Tax'

After Elon Musk proposed selling a percentage of his stock on Twitter, US Senator Ron Wyden ripped the Tesla and SpaceX CEO. On Saturday, 6 November, Musk responded to a proposal that Wyden suggested aimed at taxing billionaires. He tweeted saying, “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock”. Musk said that he would sell a percentage of his stock holdings in Tesla Inc if the move won backing in a Twitter poll.  

In response to the tweet, Wyden slammed Musk and said that it is time for the Billionaires Income Tax. While taking to the microblogging website, the Democratic Senator said that it shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll whether or not the world’s richest man pays any taxes at all. 

Last month, Wyden released a proposal to be included in Democrats’ social spending bill as a way to help pay for some of the initiatives proposed in the legislation. According to The Hill, the tax proposal would tax the investment gains of billionaires annually. Back then, the Democratic Senator had said that the Billionaires Income Tax could restore fairness of the nation’s tax code, and fund critical investments in American families. 

'Billionaires Income Tax' proposal 

It is to mention that Musk is currently the wealthiest person in the world. His recent Twitter poll came in response to US President Joe Biden’s recently proposed Democratic plan to levy the taxes on the top billionaires including Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and 700 others. The proposal would affect people who either have an income of over $100 million for at least three years in a row or have assets worth over $1 billion. 

The domestic policy seeks to implement "billionaire tax”, an estimated 23.8% tax rate on the long-term capital gains on tradable assets for the big American tech giants. For scenarios that include non-tradeable assets, like real estate, once taxpayers sell their assets, they could pay both regular capital gains taxes and an additional charge. Meanwhile, Musk has previously also slammed the policy and claimed that it would slowly start targeting other taxpayers later on. 

(Image: Twitter/AP)