Elon Musk criticized Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she said he paid “zero” dollars in taxes for the year 2018.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla, responded to a Twitter user who quote-tweeted a video of Warren during an interview on CNN’s New Day on Sunday morning. The user pointed out that in 2021, Musk will pay “the single largest tax bill of any individual in history,” which is “over $11 billion.”
“Will visit IRS next time I’m in DC just to say hi, since I paid the most taxes ever in history for an individual last year,” Musk wrote. “Maybe I can have a cookie or something.”
MUSK ACCUSES SEC OF HARASSING TESLA TO CHILL HIS CRITICISM OF GOVERNMENT
“Billionaires ought to be paying taxes,” Warren said during the interview. “It shouldn’t simply be optional. What we’ve now seen is both giant corporations and billionaires have enough tricks in the tax code.”
Warren used Musk as an example of billionaires who don’t pay their taxes. “For example, Elon Musk, 2018, we’ve actually seen his tax returns.”
“You know how much he paid in taxes? One of the richest people in the world?” Warren said. “Zero,” she said, claiming that Jeff Bezos, “another one of the richest people in the world,” is also guilty of not paying taxes.
For 2021, Elon will be paying the single largest tax bill of any individual in history (over $11 billion). @elonmusk https://t.co/CUdlqh471k
— Sawyer Merritt ?? (@SawyerMerritt) February 20, 2022
“He pays less in taxes than a public school teacher or a firefighter,” Warren claimed. “They do this because they are only being taxed on income. They very cleverly make sure they have no official income, they just have all this stock that keeps building in value, building in value, they borrow against it.”
A ProPublica report from June found that Musk, along with several other billionaires, such as Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Warren Buffett, had paid no federal income taxes for 2018.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Musk revealed in December that he would pay $11 billion in taxes for 2021, with the high cost of his taxes possibly due to his stock in Tesla. If he had not sold 10% of his stock during November, he would have had to pay $5 billion in taxes, according to CNBC.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Tesla for a comment but did not receive a response back.
