- Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was “accumulating resources to help make life multi-planet.”
- Musk was responding to criticism from Senator Bernie Sanders.
- “This level of greed and inequality is not just immoral. It is unsustainable,” said Sanders.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to Senator Bernie Sanders’ criticism of his huge fortune, saying he would use his money to help humanity.
“I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary and extend the light of consciousness to the stars,” Musk said on twitter.
Musk has become one of the richest people in the world, alongside Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Liberal lawmakers have called for higher taxes on billionaires, saying they are not paying their fair share.
“We are at a time in American history when two guys – Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – own more wealth than the poorest 40% in this country,” said Senator Bernie Sanders said on Twitter on Thursday.
The Vermont senator added: “This level of greed and inequality is not just immoral. It is unsustainable.”
An article published by the Clean Technica website called the senator’s comments “truly ridiculous”. Musk responded to the article, saying that he planned to make life “multiplanetary”.
Musk, who also runs SpaceX, said last year that he planned to send a million people to Mars by 2050, creating “many jobs” on the Red Planet. He said he was “highly confident” that the first SpaceX spacecraft could land on Mars in 2026, although some experts have raised doubts about its schedule.
Bernie Sanders.
AP Photo / Susan Walsh, Pool
Musk and Bezos have always been the richest people in the world. When Musk’s net worth rose to $ 188 billion in January, he was ahead of Bezos, who was the richest since 2017.
“How strange,” said Musk at the time.
Last week, Sanders raised questions about Bezos’s wealth in a tweet, then mentioned Musk and Bezos’ wealth at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday morning.
“Bezos and Musk now have more wealth than the poorest 40%. In the meantime, we see more hunger in America than at any time in decades,” said Sanders in his opening speech.