Wednesday evening was marked by another bold statement from Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Twitter. The billionaire entrepreneur claims that he will pay more taxes this year than any other American in history.
The tweet came as part of his spat with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), who has been a longtime supporter of wealth tax that would target not only the income of the richest US citizens, but their assets as well.
“And if you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year,” Musk tweeted in response to Warren’s reaction to the fact that TIME magazine named him its “Person of the Year.”
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Musk fires back at ‘Senator Karen’ over tax tweet
“Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” Warren tweeted.
The eccentric billionaire responded by calling the politician a “Senator Karen” in one of his follow-up tweets.
“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 said. “Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.”
The term “Karen” has been widely used in America as a slang word to refer to white women perceived as entitled or demanding.
Warren’s claims about Musk not paying much in taxes aren’t entirely baseless. According to a ProPublica investigation published in 2018, Musk paid nothing in federal income taxes that year. The billionaire reportedly paid less than $70,000 in taxes back in 2015 and 2017.
However, Musk, who currently doesn’t earn a cash salary, but only owns stock in his companies, likely owes the federal government at least $8.3 billion for 2021, according to Forbes’ estimates. The figure is reportedly based on the stock sales of nearly $13 billion the world’s richest person implemented through December 13.
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