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John,
We can do the math: Given Elon Musk’s current net worth of $253 billion, if he continues to accrue wealth at his current rate of 110% per year, he will be worth $531 billion 12 months from now, and $1.1 trillion in just two years.
Already the wealthiest man in the world, at this rate, by 2027, Musk will have over $2 trillion, a personal wealth greater than the GDPs of all but the world’s 10 wealthiest countries.
No individual should be allowed to amass so much wealth that they become the fiscal equivalent of another nation-state within their own country.
The very existence of this much wealth in one person’s hands is itself counter to the functioning of a healthy democracy. To make it worse, though, if Trump wins the election, he has promised to give Musk a role in his administration -- as head of a new “government efficiency commission” to reduce “waste and needless government regulation.”
Alarm bells are going off, and not just at Mother Jones, but at the notably billionaire-friendly Wall Street Journal, which expresses some discomfiture around the idea that heading up Trump’s audit of the U.S. government would “give Musk influence over the federal agencies that regulate his empire, including SpaceX and Tesla.”
Both Trump and Musk, and their businesses, have avoided millions of dollars in taxes over the years on their way to achieving these irresponsible accumulations of wealth and power. It’s time to tax the billionaires!
Tell Congress: The time has come to stop the oligarchy and raise taxes significantly on billionaires, before they become trillionaires and put the economy in the service of their own self-interests.
Musk and Trump have not always been on such friendly terms. In 2022, Trump called Musk a “bulls**t artist” and Musk said it was “time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.” Ah, what a difference two years can make! Now the two see mutual benefits in dollars and power from getting on the same MAGA team.
But what’s good for Trump and Musk is not what’s good for the country. To the billionaire / trillionaire class, getting rid of “waste and needless government regulation” means truncating Social Security, Medicare, and firing all the federal gatekeepers who protect our food, drugs, air, water, climate, and natural resources. Oh yes, and our rights to organize, and to live free of discrimination and fraudulent business practices.
Of course, both men want to do away with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). What government function better represents the very thing both men yearn to be free of -- namely, concern for protecting the public from their own unethical business practices.
If you are concerned about the conflicts of interest Musk would bring, as the world’s first trillionaire and as the chief auditor of the U.S. government, you’re not alone. But Trump has never faced any consequences from the conflicts of interest he baldly pursued as president last time around.
This is why we need to speak up and press Congress to take action now. We need a tax policy that works for all of us, not just the billionaires - - and soon enough, the world’s first trillionaire. There’s more of us than there are of them!
Demand that Congress restore some balance to the economy and raise taxes on billionaires like Elon Musk!
Thank you for continuing to sound the alarms!
- Amanda
Amanda Ford, Director
Democracy for America
Advocacy Fund
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