After Elon Musk asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, the architect of the proposed billionaires tax that prompted the move dismissed the tweet as a stunt.
“Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,” said Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and chair of the Senate finance committee. “It’s time for the billionaires income tax.”
Wyden has led Democrats pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when stock prices go up even if they do not sell shares, a concept called “unrealised gains”.
Proponents of the tax say it would affect about 700 people, who would thus help pay for Joe Biden’s $1.75tn 10-year public spending proposal, which seeks to boost health and social care and to fund initiatives to tackle the climate crisis.
The spending proposal remains held up in Congress, by moderates demanding nonpartisan analysis of its costs and by centrist senators resistant to many of its goals. Democrats are also split over the proposed billionaires tax.
Last month, unveiling his proposal, Wyden said: “There are two tax codes in America. The first is mandatory for workers who pay taxes out of every paycheck. The second is voluntary for billionaires who defer paying taxes for years, if not indefinitely.
“The billionaires income tax would ensure billionaires pay tax every year, just like working Americans. No working person in America thinks it’s right that they pay their taxes and billionaires don’t.”
Musk, who also owns SpaceX, was named by Forbes magazine as the first person worth more than $300bn. He has a history of controversial behaviour on Twitter.
Responding to Wyden’s original proposal, he tweeted: “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.”
On Saturday, he said: “Much is made lately of unrealised gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?”
By Sunday morning nearly 3 million people had voted: 57% said yes and 43% no.
“I will abide by the results of this poll,” Musk said, “whichever way it goes. Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.”
In one response to the stunt, the Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman tweeted: “Looking forward to the day when the richest person in the world paying some tax does not depend on a Twitter poll.”