"I knew one day I'd have to watch powerful men burn the world down - I just didn't expect them to be such losers."

[Kid Berwyn]

12. President Musk Agenda: Tax Avoidance!

Why Is Elon Musk Supporting Donald Trump? Tax Avoidance!

Like so many of his fellow billionaires, the world’s richest man is placing wealth over country.

by Bob Lord
Inequality.org, October 26, 2024

Elon Musk, the New York Times reports, has gone all in for Donald Trump. His pro-Trump America PAC, has already spent $118 million and has the budget to spend tens of millions more, almost all of that coming from Musk himself.

Musk has based his efforts on Trump’s behalf in Pennsylvania, the state he sees as the election’s lynchpin. He’s even talking about going door-to-door himself. And Musk, of course, is also spreading election misinformation on X, the former Twitter, at a furious pace.

Quite an about-face for someone who in 2020 voted for Biden and called Trump in private conversations a “stone-cold loser.” The reasons for that 180-degree about-face? Musk is claiming that Democrats are trying to “fill the country with undocumented immigrants.” Humanity, he adds, “will never reach Mars” unless Trump triumphs.

Reasons like these amount to pure rationalization. The one and only real reason Musk supports Trump: how much he’ll save in federal taxes if Trump triumphs. How can we be so sure? The timeline on Musk’s turn from Trump skeptic to Trump champion leaves no doubt when and why Musk’s political stance so abruptly and radically changed.

Back in 2021, less than a year after Musk cast his vote for Biden, House Democrats passed the Biden-backed Build Back Better budget package. That legislation included an 8 percent surtax on incomes over $25 million.

Continues...

https://inequality.org/article/why-is-elon-musk-supporting-donald-trump-tax-avoidance/

Of course, he had no idea his centi-billionaire fortune would balloon by nearly a half before the inauguration.

Elon Musk’s wealth jumps by $170bn since election after he backed Trump with $277m

Musk’s wealth and position advising Trump rockets him to unique position in U.S. history

Josh Marcus
The Independent, 16 December 2024

Elon Musks’s wealth has jumped more than $170 billion since Election Day, according to a Washington Post analysis, capping off a year that saw the tech billionaire go all in supporting Donald Trump and Republican candidates with a combined $277 million contribution.

A substantial portion of that increase is driven by Tesla’s soaring share price, according to the analysis. Musk owns a reported 12 percent of the electric automaker, the world’s most valuable car company, and Tesla shares are up about 70 percent since the election.

“Elon stuck his neck out, he made a big bet — and he was right,” Gene Munster, managing partner at investment firm Deepwater Asset Management, told the newspaper of Musk’s recent moves.

Musk’s current net worth is roughly $455 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, and is the wealthiest person on the planet. Last week, Musk became the first person in history to be worth more than $400 billion dollars.

Beyond the Tesla surge, aerospace firm SpaceX has been another key driver of Musk’s growing wealth.

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https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/elon-musk-net-worth-trump-b2665395.html

PS: Sorry to sound so pedantic allatime, malaise. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are not always hip to that. Besides, it's no fun living off the crumbs falling from the bastards' table.