Bernie Sanders responded to Elon Musk’s defense of the Tesla founder’s enormous wealth amid growing Congressional discussions about income inequality.
Musk responded to a column criticizing the senator’s previous comments about his wealth, estimated at about $ 167 billion.
“We are at a time in American history when two guys” – Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos – “own more wealth than the poorest 40 percent in the country,” said Sanders.
“This level of greed and inequality is not just immoral,” he added. “It is unsustainable.”
Mr. Musk responded by saying that he is “accumulating resources to help make life multi-planet [and] extend the light of consciousness to the stars. “
Sanders then returned to the founder of Space X on Sunday: “Space travel is an exciting idea, but now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children do not go hungry, people do not become homeless and everyone Americans are healthy. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy. “
Musk, who also founded SpaceX, plans to send people to Mars as part of a colonization effort in the next decade.
The founder of Tesla previously trained with the senator about the company’s government subsidies – he called Sanders a “docile puppet of big oil” after the senator pointed out that Tesla was driven by “$ 4.9 billion in corporate welfare”.
Sanders took advantage of his seat as the new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to consider legislation and hold public hearings on income inequality, wage disparities and corporate subsidies.
This week, Congressional senator and progressive lawmakers proposed raising taxes on companies that pay their executives at least 50 times more than the average worker’s salary.
In 1980, corporate CEOs made an average of 42 times more money than their average workers. But in the past two decades, CEO salaries have risen to nearly 350 times that of an average employee, according to testimony by Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies at a Senate Budget Committee hearing.
The organization reported that almost 80 percent of S&P 500 companies paid the CEO more than 100 times the average salary of their average worker in 2018, while almost 10 percent of these companies paid median incomes that were below the federal poverty line for a family. of four.
In 2018, Musk earned more than $ 2.28 billion from Tesla, including salary, stock options, stock appreciation and other benefits, according to the report, while the average worker’s salary was $ 56,163.
A recent analysis revealed that the collective wealth of the wealthiest 651 billionaires increased by more than $ 1 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement announcing legislation aimed at paying CEOs, Senator Sanders said the United States is “moving towards an oligarchic form of society in which the very wealthy are phenomenally well and working families are fighting in a way that they cannot. we’ve seen since the Great Depression. ”
“In a time of enormous income and wealth inequality, the American people are demanding that large, profitable corporations pay their fair share of taxes and treat their employees with the dignity and respect they deserve,” he said.
According to the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, which puts pressure on companies with better salaries to increase salaries, tax penalties would start at 0.5% for companies that pay their top executives between 50 and 100 times more than their normal workers.
Walmart would pay up to $ 854.9 million more in taxes and Home Depot would pay up to $ 550.8 million more in taxes, according to lawmakers.