"That Musk is a self-made man is a total myth"

[Budi]

Elon Musk is attacking Biden over his proposed tax on billionaires

Tesla would not even exist today had it not been for a $465 million bailout from Obama

SpaceX got a $2.9 BILLION contract from the government to build a moon lander

That Musk is a self-made man is a total myth

Link to tweet

Oh & btw,

Link to tweet

[AleksS]

1. And even if it was true,

Is there anyone out there that would say:

Well, I REALLY wanted to be a billionaire but if Im going to get taxed on it, I might as well not even bother.

[PatSeg]

16. Yeah, why even bother to put forth the effort

if the government is just going to tax your profits? Might as well just drive a truck instead.

[Coventina]

2. Oh, but I was assured by several DUers that Musk WANTS to pay more taxes

but just CAN'T until the law gets changed!!!!

[SheltieLover]

3. Musk needs to shut his pie hole

[world wide wally]

4. What billionaire ever quit his billion dollar job to drive a school bus because his

taxes as a billionaire were too high?

[Thomas Hurt]

5. "Self made man" is a myth.

[KPN]

12. THIS

[nitpicker]

6. And the Hertz deal is slated to be subsidized too

With a 30% tax credit to Hertz for buying all those vehicles, according to a new bill.

[Jon King]

7. No such thing as a self made man, simply impossible.

Any business person relies on the military to protect the country, the police and fire departments, the road system, the school system to educate future employees, the laws that protect intellectual property. There are no self made men, this is what Obama was saying when he said 'you didn't build that'.

He was totally right, every single successful business person only exists because the country has the infrastructure to allow the success. This is another reason its disgusting the difference in CEO pay to the average employee's pay.

[NHvet]

10. Ain't that the truth.

[KPN]

13. And THIS

[UTUSN]

8. K&R

[Hassler]

11. And I doubt Tesla is worth anything.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Some Financial Data

The market capitalization is $1.03 Trillion.
But, revenues are only $3.15 billion, so speculation on the distant future has the company valued at 30x actual business value.
By contrast, Walmart has around $560 billion with a cap of $411 billion. Revenues EXCEED market cap by over 30%. Quite the contrast with Tesla.
The free cash position is only around $2.7 billion, or a quarter percent of market cap. That's on the low side. The company from which I retired had $3 billion capitalization but around $58 million in free cash, or 1.9%.
Remarkably, because of this inexplicably high stock value, their debt:equity is microscopic. Among the lowest of any company in the western world. Of course, it wouldn't be like that if the stock wasn't worth 30x the business operating value of the company.
There isn't a simple explanation why the company is worth so much.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Quantum Physics, Huh?

I was quite into quantum theory.
I'm a retired physical organic chemist with specialties in mechanistic chemistry & kinetics. Lots of quantum theory in mechanisms.
My other specialty is in phase behavior & surface effects, but that's macromolecular, not quantum.
Later, I got fascinated by the attempts to rationalize Einstein with QT. No work on it, just a lot of reading.
If you just basically understand it, you have much to be proud of!

[Loki Liesmith]

17. Spacex's business is government contracts

That isn’t exactly a handout.

[Budi]

19. ..."in fact a lot of his money is actually literally taxpayer money"

Link to tweet

"The irony is Elon gets tons of government subsidies for various programs and pays very little corporate or personal taxes so in fact a lot of his money is actually literally taxpayer money."

[TxGuitar]

21. Doesn't he come from South African money,

like diamonds or something? Ill gotten gains there no doubt.