Time magazine has chosen electric car magnate and space pirate Elon Musk as its “Person of the Year” for 2021.

Now, being named “Person of the Year” does not necessarily mean someone is a *good* person.

For example, Time has given the “award” to Adolph Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942), Richard Nixon (1971 and 1972), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), Ronald Reagan (1980 and 1983), Newt Gingrich (1995), Jeff Bezos (1999 — yes, 22 years ago), Rudy Giuliani (2001), George W. Bush (2000 and 2004), Vladimir Putin (2007), Ben Bernanke (2009), Mark Zuckerberg (2010), and Donald Trump (2016).

And there are more than a few reasons why Musk is a controversial choice, including:

Just last week, Musk opined that the U.S. should “just delete” all government subsidies.

Do you think he’ll give back the $4.9 billion (and counting) in government subsidies his companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, have actively solicited so far?

Also last week, Musk — parroting ancient claptrap about the federal budget deficit — opposed President Biden’s proposed Build Back Better investments in America’s future.

Never mind the fact that Build Back Better pays for itself. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman notes, Tesla was founded in 2003 but did not turn a profit until 2020. In other words, Musk’s flagship company operated in the red for the better part of two decades as an investment in the future.

The self-driving cars Musk is rushing to market have a record of serious failures — including crashing into stopped emergency vehicles — some of which have involved fatalities.

Musk has been found guilty of flagrant union busting tactics.

In March of 2020, at the outset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Musk infamously predicted “probably close to zero new cases” in the U.S. by the end of April. Musk was, tragically, very wrong — our country was averaging almost 29,000 new cases *a day* by the end of April, 2020.

But let’s set all of that aside for the moment and focus on just one thing we know about Musk.

He is currently the richest person on the planet, with an estimated net worth of $247.4 billion according to Forbes’ “Real-Time Billionaires” list.*

Yet as recently as 2018, Musk paid nothing — literally zero — in federal income tax.

Former “Person of the Year” and fellow space pirate, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is currently the third richest person on Earth ($193.9 billion). Between 2014 and 2018 — when his wealth grew by $99 billion — Bezos paid less than 1% in federal income taxes.

A bill in the U.S. Senate, the Billionaires Income Tax, would ensure that our nation’s 700 or so billionaires — including “Person of the Year” winners like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos — would pay taxes every year just like the rest of us do.

Tell the Senate:

It is absurd — and unfair — that so many billionaires pay so little in income taxes. Pass the Billionaires Income Tax.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now: a society with so many billionaires whose fortunes are increasing so rapidly that there’s a “need” to track their wealth in real time may have its priorities out of whack.

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