When news broke about the SpaceX IPO, I knew it was about to get entertaining. Musk becoming the first trillionaire was a headline destined to drag every envy-peddling Marxist douchebag out from under their rock (which often looks remarkably similar to a mansion) to caterwaul.
All they see is someone with more than them who, unlike them, created real value, while they stole from others to enrich themselves. Musk’s contribution is significant.
In the past five years, Musk’s companies have paid up to $110.7 billion in wages, enough for every resident of Los Angeles to receive $27,000. This income supports the lives of over 200,000 employees, from welders manufacturing the electric pickup Cybertruck to software engineers designing Mars rockets. Not only top executives benefit; Tesla’s average annual salary is about $160,000, allowing employees to settle down, educate their children, and boost local industries such as dining.
From a reader:
In a comment section, I just read A Canadian poster was listening to the Elon hate at his local coffee shop in Ontario, he noted that many of them are the teachers, he pointed out that the teachers unions pensions made 17 billion dollars in their pensions thanks to Elon- there was silence of course.
The irony is rich, thick, and delicious, as many a public pension benefits from the innovation of people like Elon while the politicians they advocate for and support do everything imaginable to undermine whichever golden goose happens to be fleeing their city or state. All while progressive governance promises to deliver what Elon Musk and other productive wealth creators do, while government does the opposite. Everything begins with taking someone else’s product of labor and distributing it to people to buy votes, which only accelerates the inevitable failure of this system of graft.
And while public employees like to insist that they pay taxes too, they pay taxes with a portion of our taxes, taken by force or the threat of it. Musk’s business, on the other hand, creates revenue that is taxed (using the same force) but from voluntary exchange.
Musk’s business empire makes significant contributions in taxes. The personal income and payroll taxes paid by employees alone amount to $31.8 billion, supporting education, infrastructure, and social security systems. This amount is equivalent to funding NASA’s budget twice. At the corporate level, despite enjoying tax incentives related to green technology and R&D, these companies still paid $5.2 billion in corporate income taxes. Adding the approximately $9 billion in payroll taxes borne by employers, it is clear that Musk’s enterprises are fulfilling their tax obligations rather than evading them.
Elon also creates additional wealth for regular people, who are taxed, by driving productive activity necessary for his businesses to succeed.
Musk not only focuses on his own enterprises but also spreads wealth across the U.S. through the supply chain. Tesla alone has procured $166 billion worth of batteries, chips, and steel from U.S. suppliers, strongly supporting manufacturing in Michigan and Nevada. SpaceX adheres to the “Made in America” principle, contributing $7 billion in procurement, primarily sourcing rocket-grade alloys and avionics from domestic suppliers. Together with xAI, the total procurement reaches $173 billion, benefiting thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises, creating a large number of indirect jobs, and enhancing the resilience of the U.S. supply chain against global risks.
Elon’s success is the result of creating things people want, need, or are interested in investing in. The result is roughly 338 billion in economic activity since 2021.
While Bernie and Sandy, and Lizard Warren cry about inequity or whatever their class warfare rhetoric might be today, their project can’t operate without people like Musk. If he doesn’t create real value, there is no economic activity to tax, no wages earned, no property purchased, because no one invests in government or politicians unless it is to gain advantage or steal from people who do things to fund or support people who don’t.
One more point worth mentioning. The left didn’t care much, if at all, about Elon’s wealth when it seemed like a well they could tap.
Sorry, one more (one more) point. When Dems try to say that this much of Elon’s money could do this much (perceived) good, ask why, despite hundreds of billions or even trillions taken and spent by the government, it always seems to make matters worse?
Elon likely does more good in a week than most Democrats do in a lifetime, the lesson being that if you want to improve anything, the government is the last place to look to ‘manage’ the “improving.”
