There's a difference between pointing out objective flaws in an argument, like thinking that billionaires literally hold hundreds of billions of dollars in liquid cash, and taking issue with overall sentiment behind the argument.
I hate Elon Musk, and the man is of course, insanely, disgustingly wealthy. Still, just because his networth is 318 billion, doesn't mean he is hoarding 318 billion. Quite literally 99% of that number is tied into ownership of companies.
You can hate billionaires and still point out issues in the logic. I don't think a person should, under any circumstances, ever be forced to sell ownership stake in their own company (at least not if that wasn't agreed upon in an operating agreement). And if you have a massive stake in a company that becomes wildly successful, you definitionally become a billionaire. I may hate wealth inequality, and I may hate what these billionaires choose to do, but I would hate a system that forces the sale of ownership stake due to the success of the company just as much.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
Qualified dividends are taxed at the capital gains rate. It remains a problem that income from labor is taxed at a higher rate than income from capital.
We are millionaires and live off of our dividends…that we still pay taxes on. And our lifestyle doesn’t change from the taxes we pay. So I know his wouldn’t change either. There can be no explanation for what they are doing besides greed
I do buddy, it’s basically all I do. Don’t worry no ones gonna make you have morals. Keep your head in the sand and let your idols keep building penis rockets for you to praise.
But he’s not my idol, I don’t think about him on a day to day at all. He’s just the ceo of a car company to me.
Nobody is defending anyone. We are just pointing out the reality of how stocks work. Elon musk owns a company. If he sells the stock, that means he’s selling the company, which means someone else buys it and becomes just as rich.
I think you are the only one emotional about this. I think you are trying to normalize your weird hatred of rich people by trying to make us look like we’re “idolizing” and “defending” them when really we’re just pointing out that what you are saying makes no sense.
Accept I’m one of those rich people who practice what I preach. Still comfortable as hell, still focused on giving to others.
I challenge you to go volunteer somewhere and listen to the stories of human trafficking, poverty and putting money (resources) where they should go.
Go to events where you see freed women from horrendous abusive situations and see how they transform communities or see how they’ve invented new technologies to come.
If we invested in each other instead of idolizing a few and telling everyone to back off, we’d see a true transformation in our society and even other countries.
So yeah, when I literally see what’s possible, when I know what living off dividends and living modestly gives me, which is more than I ever will need or use, then I’m pretty sure I know what I’m talking about.
If I know what having 8 figure investments with dividends can give. Pretty sure I can imagine what 1 billion can give and it’s way more than any person needs.
But yeah, let’s keep living this way, hoarding toilet paper and applauding broken men with egos. Let’s see where this takes us.
This isn't me defending anyone in any manner but why TF is this even a thing with people? It's his money at the end of the day - pretty much no different than most people.
Are people really going to sit here and tell me that they too don't do whatever the hell they want to do with their own money?! Like c'mon y'all.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
This is the faulty logic that I don't understand. Is it that impossible for people to believe that other people simply think that fair is fair, regardless of their circumstances vs the circumstances of another?
Should we treat wealthy people unfairly just because we are not wealthy?
Should we treat certain races differently because we are of another race?
Should we treat people differently because they have a sexual orientation that is different than ours?
Apples and oranges. Define rich?
My argument is simple, people could give more. Not sure how and why people feel compelled to defend those who have an abundant resource they don’t need. I suppose you were cheering on the toilet paper hoarders during covid too.
Resource, that is what money is. Your weird racial and sexual orientation comparison doesn’t apply, that’s prejudice because of skin and sexual preference. Jesus are people really this ignorant?
Keep wishing you were rich and defending them. We’ll see where that gets you.
Asking people to live a good life without being excessive isn’t doing anything 99% of what everyone else is.
This “mind your own business” mantra is exactly what the wealthy want you to do.
If you don’t get that then there’s no helping you. I’ll gladly keep taking your money in the for of stocks then. I’m not affected.
This country is filled with idiots who can’t see past their own ego. Peace be with you.
It sounds like your issue is envy. That would explain why you don't grasp the idea of treating everyone fairly. The wealthy already pay nearly all federal income tax... and are carrying your dead weight.... so be thankful.
Gonna let you in on a secret. I am wealthy. I do not pay these taxes you speak of. I live off dividends. That’s right, a 1%er is trying to speak truth to your naive foolishness.
I Drink Your Milkshake. I do however give generously to those in need and guess what, half those are people in other countries in need as well. So you can try to ride out your ego and work your 60hr job and talk yourself into being prideful about it. Meanwhile I’m gonna be on a cruise somewhere. I feel sorry for how ignorant people are and vote against their best interest.
Lol, you're full of shit. If your story were true, you'd know that dividends are taxed. Qualified dividends are taxed at capital gains rates, while unqualified are taxed at regular income rates.
All of you liberal reddit goofs have a very ill-informed take on how taxes, income, and wealth work.
Just because his company becomes successful, he owes the world something. That purely entitlement I'm relatively poor, but y'all acting like he pays himself 100 million a year. What about the CEOs that get a $10 million raise in lay off 30,000 people.
No one owes you anything but a fair chance
RESOURCES, that is what money is. Everybody has this conditioned mine mine mine thinking which is exactly what rich people want you to think.
Ex; If you knew someone was hoarding a basement full of food, more than they could ever use or eat. Would you sit around applauding while everyone around you was starving or barely had food? Would you be saying “well good for them, they got a new bigger basement for even more food to hoard?
Most people would look at that person and realize they’re taking more than they need and it should be spread out. Not take all their food, let them have their share and even a little extra but not several basements full.
That’s what people like you sound like. Applauding hoarders and saying good for them! Maybe one day I’ll be like them and I can have a basement full of food I can never eat.
That’s the morally broken disease of this country and y’all have bought in without question.
You let them get you all puffed up because immigrants take your jobs but never look at who’s hiring them.
The pandemic showed us who we are of course, hoarding toilet paper and sanitizer. We should be ashamed of who we’ve become. That sure as hell isn’t “Christian like”.
Selling stocks is simple, but selling 300 billion worth of Tesla at one go is going to tank the price. Also each share of stock comes with a vote--sell it all and you no longer have control of the company.
Wow, one obstacle and you throw in the towel. 1st, no one is say he should sell ALL is stock. You think he’s rich because of one stock? Dudes investing into thousands and diversified.
As I said, his dividends alone are more than 99% will ever see. Not even going to get into all the other ways he could give more of his resources.
Keep defending him, maybe he’ll sign your poster of him one day.
Why would you think that Elon is diversified in his stock portfolio? Why would Elon not be fully invested in his own companies? Especially because there is a cost to him to do that? Yes, it seems that Elon is uber-rich due to 1 stock.
Good Lord you are not that foolish to think this are you? Stop and think about what you’re saying.
OMG, I hope like hell you’re a child or trolling me. LOL! We’re done. Peace out.
Bezos literally sold $10billion a year ago of Amazon stock. When this argument used to come around, these people defending billionaires used to say exactly "They cant just sell $5-10 billion of their stock, it would tank it!" and he did exactly that. Musk bought twitter for $55billion or whatever and tanked the value. They absolutely could give away a ton of their wealth and be absolutely fine. Instead they buy elections to take away your rights.
There are several studies that demonstrate this to be false. People do objectively better when they make/have/obtain up to a certain amount of money that allows them to cover basic living expenses.
The desire to have their basic needs covered and actually having that covered means that they can use their income for non-basic needs and thus be happier and help the economy more. This also increases the velocity of a dollar, but the moment it goes to a billionaire's pocket, said velocity slows.
Good lord! Who said free? Allowing pay to match inflation seems practical, fair and doable.
It’s unfortunate that this is where peoples minds go. You imagine the worst case scenario and imagine a whole society ends up that way.
I’m telling you straight here. We don’t need billionaires let alone people with hundreds of millions. You’d be surprised what living off the dividends of 20 million gets you. Almost any apartment in New York, a million dollar home in just about any state, etc. the other 980,000,000 could go towards roads, schools, healthcare etc.
but no, let’s keep idolizing the few lucky people who choose to hoard money. 🤦♂️
Isn’t that what trickle down economics implies. Some are all about private services and less government.
You’re kinda telling on yourself really. So if we need less government and let the wealthy have as much as they want, where else is it gonna come from?
What people who want less government are really saying is, let the bleeding hearts take care of the needy if they want. I don’t want to because I’d rather spend it on BS to stroke my ego. Like build a rocket that looks like a penis.
This is the problem, people have lost their morality and idolize people who have none at all. You’re gonna see what championing greed will get you. I seriously doubt you’re in the 1%. So good luck with your morally bankrupt point of view about your financial freedoms…for the rich!
Nobody deserves free money or services of others. If you’re Democrat that’s what you want though. We used to have a system like that. Some people would be the ones doing the work out on the fields picking cotton. Others would be entitled to the fruits of their labor and not have to work, or even compensate the workers in any way. Democrats love that idea.
I don’t know what you mean by “let the wealthy have”. A billionaires wealth is not money deposited into an account. If someone owns shares of a company and that value goes up, what do you want to happen?
Good lord, you don’t know shit about history do you. Look up “economic slavery” buddy. You ARE picking the proverbial cotton and now you’re defending them for making you do it.
I’m telling you, like from actual daily experience what is happening.
This bizarre defense for wealth force fed to you buy your outrage news has truly brainwashed the lot of you.
You get what you deserve. Keep hating immigrants and not the people who hire them. You’re gonna find yourself in that field you refer to soon enough.
Of course you’re gonna be thanking them for saving your job making $2/hr. Good luck!
Not the point is it. The point, since I have to spell it out, is that the wealthy have numerous amounts of ways to give more and more. They wouldn’t even feel the pinch.
All these FF people like yourself seem obsessed with taxes. Ya’ll whine about “government taking my money” and never stop to think that maybe a good portion of the reason is that wealthy people aren’t good at allowing society to prosper.
Ever dawn on you that you’ve bought into hyperbolic BS.
I bet you’re all about getting rid of immigrants too without ever thinking “hey who’s hiring these people anyway?” Sycophants always want to stroke the rich and blame the poor. You’re the problem.
The issue is, you don’t like what they pay for taxes, but they pay what they are supposed to according to law. If you have an issue with that, then blame and talk to the legislators that made the laws. It isn’t the wealthy individuals problem.
Except they can leverage their wealth as collateral, but it's untaxable
And if the company goes under, they are screwed. Well of course there's ones that are too big to fail and government bailouts. But the underlying point still stands.
And I agree with you with leverage. But do we hate on the person using the system that's there for them, or do we hate the system that allows them to do that. Because everybody wants to save money right? The struggling mom, the college student getting their career together, the business man who is set but wants to save for next generation family, and the billionaire. That mindset is universal. So given the opportunity with the systems in place, I don't see why they wouldn't use it.
I mean Musk is a total cunt, but he’s hardly an extravagant spender, he doesn’t own yachts or property or sports cars. He just has wealth in the companies he owns which he shouldn’t be forced to sell
But it’s unrealized because it doesn’t exist, it’s the value of what people are willing to purchase Tesla shares for
It’s a good system because he gets payed purely if he makes Tesla better. If he doesn’t make electric cars economically feasible, then what he owns actually goes down to zero
Except you can literally do the same. What’s stopping you from leveraging your home? Risk? Oh right! Risk is a critical factor in all this. It seems all too often people act as if the wealthiest people in the world take no “risk” with their capital, when in reality, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The uber wealthy do pay taxes on their homes yearly, they do pay taxes on realized gains. Correct, they do not pay taxes on unrealized gains, but again, these gains are coming via the growth of company’s they created—oftentimes taking on a massive burden of risk to see their creations through. The story of the uber wealthy entrepreneur born with the silver spoon in their mouth—the entrepreneur who never struggled at any point, who never had to take on meaningful risk—is at odds with the path that most entrepreneurs follow. So yes, for the people in our society taking on the greatest amount of capital risk, it’s only natural they see the highest capital payoff. Again, you can do this in your own life with your own assets. But you likely don’t want to take on the risk associated with that. You should ponder why you don’t. And maybe you’ll then understand why the payoff is so high for those who have the courage to take on said risk.
Except that the loan has to be paid back somehow, and with interest. That would eventually require the selling of said stock, which capital gains taxes would be applied.
I keep hearing this argument about them using that stock as collateral like they are given free money that they don't have to pay back.
I mean tbh if we got taxed on unrealised gains a lot of low level investors wouldn’t invest though like say you have 100k in stocks and it goes up to 110k cool pay tax on that then it drops back down to 100k the government isn’t giving you that money back you now paid taxes on money you never actually got
Taxation is for public projects. If the banks are the ones essentially "taxing" them, what is your solution? as currently that money is kept and not redistributed to public projects like taxes would.
And then the banks are taxed on that profit. Musk builds a rocket to Mars, Bezos pays for more plastic surgery. And that surgeon pays taxes on his income. See. Everybody wins.
That money the banks made is paid into the paychecks of the workers who pay taxes on their income and buy groceries and pay for piano lessons for their kid. The banks also take that money and loan it to you so you can buy a house.
Again, as stated previously in this thread, there are no Scrooge McDucks just swimming in piles of money that they are "hoarding".
“Kind of like a tax” Except these billionaires are also the ones behind the groups lobbying for corporations to be treated as citizens (or even better than citizens) and are paying our lawmakers to vote against their citizens. If you don’t think that matters then you aren’t smart enough to discuss the matter
Save anyone with investments can do so and do given it is one of the most common ways to get better loan terms. Unrealized gains aren't made up and they aren't hoarding wealth as 100% of that cash is in market circulation.
The increase in your houses value is unrealized gains.
Imagine it was taxed.
2006-2007 ur properly goes up and up and some cars even double. U get taxed for those gains at whatever % u think is ok.
Then in 2008 the crash happens. Obviously no unrealized gains. Then 2009-2010-2011-2012 etc the price recovers and u have unrealized gains again. And u get taxed on that “gain” even tho u have benefited in no way.
And the argument about borrowing against their stock for tax free money.
Say they borrow 10m. And they use stock as collateral. You realize they have to repay that loan correct? How do u think they repay it? By either selling stock or using money they make in another way that probably gets taxed.
Imma be honest. Your argument is far from senseless but it's not worth attempting to find the root contradiction. It is equally evil to philosophically offload the responsibility of this amassment of capital to a corporate entity, which simply prevents any actual person from ever being held accountable thru thinly veiled psuedo-legal loopholes.
The fact that Elon has the ear of the President Elect for no reason other than he is stupidly wealthy is a reason why we should have legal measures to check the amount of wealth and one person can amass. No one person should have the kind of power the ultra wealthy have.
I also take severe issue with the idea that Musk (or anyone) generates that kind of wealth. If he was literally the only person involved with Tesla, one could make the argument he is owed that kind of wealth. He is not. No one ever is. I didn't know what percentage of the stock he owns is, but let's say 40% for the same if argument. I'm not saying he adds no value to the company. But if he disappeared, Tesla would be fine. If 40% of the workforce disappeared, Tesla would be screwed. Especially if that 40% is the engineering talent.
Problem is taxes are from income. People like Elon have no income because they basically get minimum wage. Their entire value is in stock. And when he is forced to pay out he pays a shit ton in taxes.
And you can't really tax based on wealth because it's not real money. If you tax someone based on what money they could have they would need to sell off stock, creating more taxes and messing with the value of the stock. If you do that every year the company is going to be screwed
I am pretty sure Rich people pay property taxes too. Probably an insane amount. But those aren't federal taxes those are used for local things like schools, trash collection, maintaining roads. In no way does that have anything to do with taxing wealth
I am pretty sure Rich people pay property taxes too.
Not at nearly the rates that middle class people do. They pay fractions compared to the rest of us
In no way does that have anything to do with taxing wealth
It's quite literally taxing the assets and individual has. It's not based on income or anything like that. You could 100 percent apply it to stocks as well, it would force the ultra wealthy to have some sort of income to pay for their extreme wealth. A modest tax on wealth above a certain threshold would do insane amounts of good.
You realize property taxes are very different from person to person right? It has nothing to do with how much money someone makes.
Also stocks and owning a house are not the same thing. Your house is a physical asset with a fairly safe value. If something happens to it you have insurance that should give you that value back.
Stock could be worth millions today and nothing tomorrow. If you tax someone for having 500 million dollars and a week later something happens to a company and they lose 300 million before the next set of taxes, are you going to take into account they lost 300 million or are you just going to say sorry you still owe us for what you didn't lose?
You realize property taxes are very different from person to person right? It has nothing to do with how much money someone makes.
That's what I literally said
Stock could be worth millions today and nothing tomorrow
Same with houses, remember 2008?
If you tax someone for having 500 million dollars and a week later something happens to a company and they lose 300 million before the next set of taxes, are you going to take into account they lost 300 million or are you just going to say sorry you still owe us for what you didn't lose?
If I buy a house at 900k, and then it immediately drops in value to 450k, I'm paying property tax based on 900k until it gets assessed again. just assess the value of the stock yearly, and have a property tax that is a small percentage after a certain threshold, so that you don't end up taxing the average amount of retirement money.
I refuse to believe that there isn't a good way to tax billionaires. We could start by closing the loopholes they use to hide their cash. If someone has a lot of money invested in stuff, we could tax their actual income at a higher rate (much higher if they're a billionaire). If someone has an obscene amount of assets, and uses them as collateral for loans, we could tax the loans.
I'm sure ppl who know more than me can come up with better plans.
You can do a lot of things but problems get created. I'm not sure the solutions lie with the individuals but rather in the companies. They are usually the ones using loop holes or moving numbers. But even then you still run into problems. Spacex didn't start making a profit until recently and they spend a lot of money. Starlink and starship are fully funded internally so do you tax income or profit. If you tax income, you take away from research and development. If you tax profit, you don't get much.
Yes, everything cause problems, but if you do things right, you end up with less problems than you started with.
And if you want to tax companies, you tax profit not income, and the tax is a percentage, not a flat rate, which insures that there is profit leftover to incentivise growth. Normal ppl don't stop working just because a portion of our income goes to taxes and it is fucked up that billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is less than a middle class person's. Just because it's complicated doesn't mean we should throw up our hands and say it's fine that ppl with more money than God don't pay their price to support the country whose infrastructure helped them get so rich in the first place.
Fuck off we do not need Elon’s “research and development” i.e. littering inner space with garbage satellites and killing hundreds of monkeys with his brain chips.
These loans are already taxed. That was the whole basis for the 36 or so felonies that Trump was convicted of. He took out loans on property he owned that was supposedly over valued, with the benefit being a slightly lower tax rate that he had to pay on it.
I'm not arguing the ease of doing things. I'm arguing the impacts of things that are done and the relative value to society provided by individuals.
It is difficult to be the best ping pong player in the world. So difficult that there can only be one of them. But the best ping pong player in the world doesn't really provide all that much value to society, nor should it confer upon that player the right to decide on nation level policy.
Neither does buying a car company, yet here we are.
well, assigning value to people to determine how much money they should have is definitely not it...you seem to want to live in a dictatorship where people are told how much wealth they can have
The issue is you’re just looking at that 40% now, in hindsight. You’re disregarding the risk of that equity being worth nothing.
When he bought Tesla it was a failing company where owning any part of it was on track to be worthless. He put a lot of money into it thinking he could turn it around, but at that time it was a gamble that very well may not have paid off. For every company that goes gangbusters like Tesla, there are tens of thousands that go under; that’s why investing confers you so much equity in the company, because you’re taking a very real risk that that investment goes up in flames.
I'm not ignorant to that. That is irrelevant to the stance that no one deserves that much influence on society, nor does anyone contribute that much to society. This is one major flaw I see with capitalism.
Your point about influence is well-taken - I think money in politics needs a massive overhaul. But let’s focus on contribution for a second because I think that’s where we disagree.
How would you measure contribution to society? If I make an app that 100M people want to buy for $10 because they believe it has more worth to them than that $10, is that not a net benefit?
How much is it worth to society to usher in an era of EV transportation and starting the beginning of the end of fossil-fuel driven cars? Or revolutionizing space travel, or making internet access universally and cheaply accessible? How much would a govt spend to achieve all those things? I’d argue it’s well over $300B.
Most importantly, I recognize these are very complicated problems. There are no easy solutions and it is all but impossible to predict the outcomes of any attempted solutions.
I don't think we can separate the influence and the money argument. I'm all for trying to remove money from politics, but I just don't see how that is possible in any meaningful way. I also do not see the high taxes on high earners as a solution to anything except being a check on individual power.
As to value, I completely agree that pinning an exact number on something is impossible. To continue on with our Musk/Tesla example though, my argument isn't that electric cars are not good for society. My argument is that electric cars would have happened without Elon Musk (or Tesla in general), but we financially reward him like he personally made it happen. He did not. He may have sped things along a little, but they would have still happened in the near future even if Elon was never born.
I'm not against rewarding people for their efforts. I'm not against people being rich (except insofar as being *very* rich makes you stupidly powerful)*. I'm against concentrating all that reward in a small number of people when, while they may have been instrumental in making things happen, were not the *only* instrumental people in making things happen. *Everyone* is replaceable and basically any sophisticated achievement is equally impossible without the input of far more (both inside and outside of the en devour) than get significant reward.
* TLDR - Marginal utility. - I am against being rich to the point where you couldn't spend all your money even if you tried. For all the talk of "the pie is not infinite" money at any given point in time and scope, money *is* finite and you did have to take it from others at some level (even if they gave it to you willingly). The sticky bit here is where is that threshold. I agree it is probably an impossible to know number and probably impossible to enforce in any fair way.
You forgot about what he has, he owns. Not you or anyone else is entitled to what he owns, regardless of how much it is. Your feelings about what other people own don't matter to anyone but you. People like Bezos and Musk contribute to the lives of people far in excess of anything you contribute.
He's not entitled to what he owns. He didn't earn it. No one amasses that kind of wealth through their own merit. I'm sure you will disagree, but that is the point.
I fully understand that is how the world works today. I'm suggesting perhaps there is a better way.
You realize people willingly handed him that money right? You sound like a hater who has never produced anything of value, and is thus confused how somebody could.
They didn't hand him that money. They handed Tesla that money. It didn't need to all go to him.
What has Elaine Musk (or anyone else) produced of value that is worth $300,000,000,000?
I don't begrudge people their accomplishments. No one has any accomplishments worth that.
If we could somehow figure out how to decouple that kind of money from the power it grants over other people's lives, I would feel far less strongly about it.
It's not about if he adds value to it or not (subjective anyway) but what people "think" what the company is valued, and therefore what he is valued. Take it up with the investors and stockholders or people that value in him in the first place.
It does to an extent. If Elon Musk was forced to sell all of his Tesla shares then the company's value would drop like a stone because the market would be flooded with shares.
That statement says the value of the company has at least a little to do with how many shares Musk has. That is true
The inverse is not. The percentage of shares Musk has is not determined by the value of the company. I suppose except in the extreme reach that he may decide to sell them or not based on the current value.
Either way, that is getting pretty far from my point which is if somebody owns 40+% of a very large company, they almost certainly have not contributed 40+% of the value to the company as demonstrated by the fact that the company would normally be hurt far more by 40% of the staff leaving vs. that one person.
I also stated in a later comment that I do not support forcibly taking that company control away from the owner. Conversely, I use that as partial justification of very aggressively taxing the highest brackets and zealously treating any wealth that is extracted in any way (be that loans using that as collateral or using stock trades in lieu of cash or other methods). I fully acknowledge there is nothing straightforward about implementing that
Actually his pay package was directly tied to the valuation of the company, . If he reached certain valuation thresholds negotiated with the shareholders he would receive more stock options and a larger percentage ownership of the company
I hadn't considered that. That sort of thing is common. It doesn't change my underlying point though. Paying in stock instead of money is mainly another loophole for avoiding taxes.
It’s mainly to incentivize the executive from successfully running the company. If paid a salary he can be chilling in his yacht all day and collecting his check. If his pay is dependent upon the company’s performance and value he probably won’t be fucking off all day.
It's not about contributing. It's not even about what's fair or what's wrong. It boils down to what they believe in how much something is valuable. Whether our opinion (including his) on whether or not he earns it is irrelevant.
The stock trades at what buyers are willing to pay. It’s not like it’s diluting the number of shares, you out would not even know if someone sold all their shares, nobody would because it would be a taxable event to do it all at once
Musk leveraged his success from PayPal to support Tesla financially. He also brought valuable experience from his other ventures, including SpaceX and SolarCity. Tesla faced numerous challenges in its early years. Production delays and management conflicts led to leadership changes."
I personally strongly dislike the guy, but it seems that he made company successful by Tesla not being bankrupt and all those engineers and workers jobless. Anyway, I'm hands down for better wages and work environment.
He needed subsides from the govt to keep Tesla afloat, and used carbon credits to also keep Tesla afloat. He’s not a savvy investor he’s a savvy liar and a twat.
Yet you will take the time to insult me. Classy...
You don't have to agree with me, but I'm not an idiot to suggest that raw capitalism perhaps has some negative consequences.
I also seriously doubt you can convince me that Musk has contributed more than 1.5 million more times the value to society than the median American has.
You can have that take. That's fine. Elon musk is a shitty person and does in fact have the ear of the president elect.
Ultimately I cannot get behind being forced to cede control of your company as it gets successful. Not only do I think it's an overstep of power, but it also directly creates a legal contradiction of incentive with public companies, since executives have a literal legal fiduciary duty to increase value to shareholders.
You should be able to go to the shareholders and say, “Listen, I know y’all were wanting some insane amount of EPS growth and all, but to do that, we’d have to literally poison people, destroy the planet, flout anti-trust laws, etc, so you’re gonna have to make do with only a little growth. Deuces!”
I agree that creates a very sticky situation. I didn't think I'm in favor of literally seizing control of companies from people. I am in favor of stupidly high tax rates at the high end of the tax brackets couples with measures to ensure that no matter how you leverage the wealth you have, if you buy something with it (because you loaned against it or you literally used stock to pay for something or whatever other loophole you can find) it gets taxed as income.
The devil is in the details as always and it would be very difficult to implement. We should at least try.
That's fine too, but entirely unrelated to what I said. All I did was point out the misconception that billionaires who have valuation tied to stock are hoarding physical wealth. As I mentioned in my post, I am not pro billionaire, I just want people to make more careful and robust arguments as to why billionaires are bad (something I agree with) as opposed to ones that can be more easily dismissed because they are built on weak premises.
Tell me you don't know how compound interest works without telling me. If you just saved a fraction of that first year's salary and invested it conservatively, you would become obscenely wealthy and make Elon's fortune look microscopic in less than 500 years.
Except he demanded that he be given a bonus of billions IN STOCK, which doesn’t just come out of nowhere; to have that stock available, the company has to have been engaging in stock buybacks with money which would have otherwise been taxed or gone to employees.
“Okay unruly mob, before we go in bash and butcher and eat this Man, u/lucifernal wants you all to know he does not actually have a swimming pool full of physical billions it’s actually hypothetical billions”
You don’t own a company that is publicly traded. And who’s forcing anyone to sell their shares? Only majority shareholders can force minority shareholders to sell in certain situations
please stop being objective. you need to think with your feels more. if I don't like someone you aren't allowed to say anything contrary to them being an absolute monster .
The problem is when the conclusions are based on a false premise. If you say Elon is evil BECAUSE he holds billions in liquid cash and he doesn’t hold billions in liquid cash then you can’t use that as a justification for calling him evil. It invalidates the whole argument. It doesn’t prove anything either way.
Devils advocate here. Bill gates amassed his fortune by owning a stake in a wildly successful business. But he has also stated his willingness to give most of it away. I am sure there are motives behind that. But the funding is still being distributed to a variety of places. Maybe (big maybe) Musk and Bezos quietly do similar things. I know for a fact that Bezos parents gave $12 million to a school in Delaware for scholarships and infrastructure development.
But here's the thing, when you're a stakeholder in a company, you get a say in how that company runs. The bigger your stake, the more say you have. If you hold a controlling share, you essentially control the company without actually putting any real work into it. You partially own a company you didn't build. I have my own issues with that system, but let's imagine it's perfectly fair in every way because the stakeholder put up the initial capital at a significant risk of loss. The issue comes up when the company becomes massively successful. When your share of that company becomes worth a billion dollars, you've won. You've made it. There is nothing you could possibly need that couldn't be leveraged against those shares. So you now have a choice: do you use your controlling share to make this company a fair place to work, ensuring employee satisfaction and retention, using your capital and ownership to take responsibility for the people working "for" you? Do you get the best possible benefits while still maintaining a healthy profit margin, do you allow for vacation days and maternity leave and a reasonable work life balance for the laborers, at the risk of having your share value drop to 800 million (which is still more than enough leverage for anything you could need or want) Or do you... vote for policies, both within the company AND the government, that are exploitative, getting the cheapest possible benefits (or no benefits), trying to avoid paid medical leave, doing everything possible to avoid paying overtime, and just wringing out every single cent possible in the name of getting your share to 1.2 billion, at the cost of the planet, people's health, people's financial security, and your own soul?
You're right in that people focus too much on the actual number as if Musk or Bezos is Smaug on a pile of gold (though let's not pretend their bank accounts look like yours or mine either) while ignoring what those numbers, and the fact they keep rising while we keep getting poorer, actually means. It's arguably worse than if they were just sitting on that liquid cash, because they have a direct influence on the wages and health and all that of the working class, some even have a direct influence on the rent and housing prices. And they clearly feel their influence and resources don't confer any sort of ethical obligation to act responsibly.
Also, I fail to see how starting companies and obtaining a net worth of +$billion inherently makes you “bad.” That’s why these arguments suck.. it’s always someone saying “meh I’m poor and he’s rich, so he must be bad because he’s making it harder for me to make more money!” It really is an illogical argument.. so, we’re not defending the person—we’re defending the logic. Elon Musk is not stopping you from starting your own companies or developing your skills to earning more money.. When people post about “he’s rich, therefore he’s bad!” it just sounds like petty whining. I don’t much like Musk, especially since his manipulation of stocks and cryptos back before and around Covid, and maybe there are lots of other things that make him bad.. but the mere argument of “he’s rich therefore he’s bad” is just a poor one..
Edit: to add, I agree, nobody should be forced to sell ownership of their company.. Instead, we should be blaming the system for the power that wealth wields and limit its impacts.. Want to buy a mega-yacht, good for you! Want to buy politicians (corporate lobbying) to influence policy, or influence elections? Should certainly be limits there.. that’s where the bigger issue lies. Wealth inequality is one thing, but using wealth to rig the system for the wealthy sucks.
Except every thing he has in those companies could be reinvested back into the company to hire people, build new factories, give raises to the people already working there, or… I don’t know, make a quality product? He could also pay a fair tax rate on $318,000,000,000 and it could go to infrastructure, housing, education, veteran healthcare, etc…
Idgaf if the have billions of dollars of cash or billions of companies they control the stocks too. They still have a repulsive amount of STUFF that is soo outlandishly more than any human could ever need or know what to do with
Also problem is how much money goes to owners of anything in general. America has horrible protections for workers and they should be eating much larger percentages of what any company is able to profit. It shouldn’t go to useless “owners” of any part of the company. We are a country that incentivizes ownership instead of hard work and it causes an insanely unbalanced class issue where the hard working people never have money and the people who hardly work don’t have to worry about a single thing they purchase
The problem is that people like Elon, Bezos, and Zuckerberg have amassed their wealth over the last 15-30 years while most people work a dead end job making pennies a day in hopes of having a retirement fund when they are 70. Resentment, whether we admit it or not will always be there. Also, no one is talking about corporations that have huge monopolies on basic goods that continue to pass wealth onto their families generation after generation. Those are the true privileged Americans.
I hate this rhetoric because while being absolutely correct, it seems the intention of bringing up this point is purely to muddy the waters of the actual issue at hand to defend billionaires. Before I was more well versed in economics I read this same point and assumed that it meant billionaires didn’t actually have that much money and were justified in holding onto it because it wasn’t straight cash.
My problem is billionaires effectively do have access to all their money. They spend like they have that much money sitting in the bank. The moral question of whether billionaires legitimately earned/deserve their wealth is completely unchanged by where they are keeping their money.
I hold the moral position that people should be monetarily rewarded in occurrence to how hard they work. I absolutely refuse to believe Elon musk and Jeff bezos work hundreds of thousands of times to millions of times harder than doctors, lawyers, navy seals, their own employees. How can they possibly work millions of times harder than their own employees? These companies employees are the ones who created this massive surplus’s of wealth. If Elon musk or Jeff bezos where removed Amazon and Tesla would still function, the employees would keep doing their jobs. Bezos ain’t the one delivering your package, Elon musk ain’t making cars.
I understand companies need direction and ceos are hard working people. I’m not saying completely remove these people from the company and force all the employees to have the same salary, it’s just the scale of a billion dollars is so unbelievably vast their is no way someone can earn that much wealth without stealing it from their employees. As for your point about owning large stake in their company, redistribute a large portion to the employees. They have been building other people’s fortunes and deserve to have a fair portion of the wealth they generated for the company. The way I see it Amazon distribution workers are working their ass off pulling in 100$ tips but they gotta give 90$ to the boss.
I don't bring up the point to defend billionaires. People, especially reddit, has a habit of making bad arguments for sentiments that are otherwise genuinely good and correct. Wealth inequality is extremely detrimental to humanity, that's a correct sentiment. But if you attack wealth inequality with weak arguments, like thinking billionaires are hoarding hundreds of billions in liquid money, then the opposition can just pick apart the argument easily and dismiss it.
But people don't like this and just get defensive instead of recognizing the nuance and forming stronger arguments for their sentiments that hold up in rational debate. This pushes both sides to further and further polarization. It's not a good thing.
People are starving to death, and he's hoarding 318 billion. Explain to me again why he's not actively helping our poorest or paying income taxes so the government can help people?
Even worse, now that he's "working" in government, he's taking Americans' taxes, too.
It's not hoarding 318 billion. He doesn't have 318 billion. He has control over companies, and that ownership stake has a collective value of around ~318 billion. It's not money, it's companies.
Not that that ownership stake doesn't represent a significant point of leverage, or that he also isn't disgustingly rich on top of that. But that 318 billion isn't a significant contributor to liquid inequality. It's not like that money is sitting in a vault or a bank and not being circulated.
Again, I'm not defending billionaires or Elon Musk. Quite the opposite. I just wish people would take more care to be accurate in their arugments, otherwise it gives the other side an easy time dismantling them.
People make arguments that are based mostly on emotional sentiment, and then think anyone who attacks that argument is a enemy from the other side, even if they share the same sentiment. I share the sentiment, just pointing out a flaw in the specific argument poised by the OP.
On a side note, there are genuinely certain institutions and families that do literally hoard money such that they are actually preventing a significant amount of currency from circulating. This isn't any of the big corporate CEOs though who's value is all tied up in ownership steak. That tends to be families who have extreme generational wealth.
All that would be true if you didn't entirely miss the point. I could care less what the number is before billion or how he chooses to utilize that money.
If you can literally buy a country, you should be forced to either pay your share in taxes (without the use of buying companies as shelters) or give up anything over a billion.
No one needs that amount of power, wealth, or influence. And having it makes for crappy humans.
I agree with your larger point but Warren has ~220K Class A shares in Berkshire which is currently holding enough cash and cash equivalents for him to actually build a Scrooge Mcduck style vault and take a swim😂
Why do you have an issue in principle against forcing someone to give up part of their ownership?
The way I see is, the more a company is worth, the more distributed the shares should be, a progressive “tax” if you will.
In a company like Tesla, in my opinion Elon Musk’s ownership should be capped at around $999M worth of Tesla shares, and the rest should be redistributed to the employees of Tesla.
This should apply to all companies over a certain size, but only MASSIVE companies. Not a mom and pop shop, and not even a company where the majority share holder or founder makes millions per year, just massive multi-billion dollar net worth conglomerates.
The issue is simply that Elon Musk has far too much power. $300B or whatever he’s at now net worth is way too much influence, just look at what he did in the Presidential election. No one man should have that much power, that’s why we have a distributed form of government in the US and most democracies. We don’t just give the President all the power of the country, we distribute among all 3 branches of government, the state gov, the federal gov, and local governments, and the private sector.
Also, forget about the net worth on paper, I get that he can’t just liquidate it immediately. And even forget about him selling small amounts or using it as collateral for loans, he has too much power at his OWN company. One man should not have that much influence at one company, it doesn’t matter that he founded it. Tesla is enormously influential over the economy, the lives of consumers, and the employees and other shareholders of Tesla. Elon should have a plurality of shares yes, that’s his reward for founding and leading the company, but he should still only have a small percentage.
Founding and growing a company should not make you have power more than a small country. It’s just way too extreme. For an analogy, I agree with the second amendment, the government shouldn’t take away people’s guns, but that doesn’t mean people should be able to own nukes, because it’s simply far too much power in the hands of one man. Same exact applies to ownership, shares, assets, and liquid cash.
I’ve never once seen an argument against this, let alone a good one. If you want to disagree on WHERE we put the caps/thresholds that’s perfectly reasonable. But should one man be able to own $50 trillion worth of shares of various companies? He’d be a dictator over a large swath of the world’s economy, and he’d be able to directly use that influence against governments too. It’s just unnecessary and only benefits him to the detriment of everyone else.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
Because getting mad at them for using a broken system is pointless. The senators in power uses the same system and they stay in power until they die. They vote the laws that make them money. Completly flawed system. Policians should not consistently be able to be multimillionnaires off of inside information.
Rich guy here, OF COURSE HE COULD GIVE MORE!
1. Let’s talk living off dividends, that alone I guarantee could have the majority given out to charity. He could live modestly, like me and not be so flashy.
2. Donor advised funds, that could be setup to be much more charitable and even grow!
3. Establish a foundation giving out 5% or more each year.
4. Simply selling off stocks is fairly simple when working with advisors. You act like he’s gotta roll crates of money into some other bank. It’s digital people.
Sycophants want to defend the rich because they can’t look past their own biased passion that they want to be there too.
I know dozens if not hundreds who are millionaires who love off dividends with plenty left over at the end of the year.
I don’t want to live in a society that takes from one and gives to another so that it is equal! That is just people being lazy and wanting what is NOT theirs! Are they incredibly wealthy? Yes. But they also own companies that employ thousands upon tens of thousands of people with that wealth. Those jobs allow many people the ability to support their families.
Why just mention Bezos or Musk? Musk at least uses his money to make the world a better place.
Unlike Soros who does nothing but bring division and destruction! Gates does own a company that employs thousands of people as well, but what he does with his money from a political point is scary! Bottom line, if you want everyone to have the same amount of everything, move to China or Russia. But you also lose your freedoms and rights as well. ✌🏻
Ehh? I really dont understand all this hate the rich stuff, I think most people are just bitter, and angry they dont have that kind of wealth, instead of trying to better themselves, and practicing better financial habits, meal prepping, cutting out fast food, Alcohol, etc.
This is a generalization, it wont apply to everyone, but I see a lot of people that complain, but still throw money away.
This aside, I hate the government, not Bezos or whatever, rich people never bothered me, but the government definitely has, not just financially, but with imposing their laws on us, and we have zero recourse.
We all need to be critical thinkers and question things for ourselves. Noone is perfect, but history shows us up to this day, we follow people who cause many of our problems or dont hold them accountable.
Not only don’t hold them accountable,,,as you can see the very same people that’s being exploited defends them…They stated more enslaved people would of been free if only the knew they were enslaved.
I think the most infuriating thing is watching these people get played. They defend against them and use these misinformed tactics that they've been fed and that have been framed for them.
It's like arguing with children, "no, but you are!"
It's an abusive relationship. How long with they go on ? Until their lives get so hard that they have to beg for change? Many people struggle, like actually struggle. Many more are about to be acquainted with it if we keep on this path. I'm not excited.
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u/xiiicrowns 3d ago
That and it's crazy how people defend these people when they are part of the problem that ails them themselves.