Bernie Sanders has responded to Elon Musk’s defense of the Tesla founder’s enormous wealth amid growing debates in Congress on income equality.
Mr. Musk responded to a column criticizing the senator’s previous remarks about his wealth, which is estimated at about $ 167 billion.
“We are at a time in American history where two guys” – Musk and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon – “own more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of the people in this country,” he said. Sanders said.
“The level of greed and inequality is not just immoral,” he added. “It’s unsustainable.”
Mr. Musk responded by saying he was “gathering resources to help make life more planetary” [and] extends the light of consciousness to the stars. ”
Mr. Sanders returned to the Space X founder on Sunday: ‘Space travel is an exciting idea, but at the moment we need to focus on the earth and create a progressive tax system so that children do not go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have health care. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy. ‘
Mr. Musk, who also founded SpaceX, plans to send humans to Mars as part of a colonization effort over the next decade.
The founder of Tesla previously saved with the senator on the company’s government subsidies – he said. Sanders called it a “tame puppet of big oil” after the senator pointed out that Tesla was driven by “$ 4.9 billion in corporate welfare”.
Mr Sanders has used his seat as the new chairman of the Senate Critics’ Budget Committee to soften legislation and hold public hearings on income inequality, inequalities and corporate subsidies.
This week, the senator and progressive lawmakers in Congress proposed raising taxes on companies that pay their top executives at least 50 times more than the pay of a median employee.
In 1980, corporate executives earned on average 42 times more money than their average workers. According to the evidence during a Senate Budget Committee hearing of Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies, the CEO’s pay has risen to nearly 350 times more than an average employee.
The organization reported that nearly 80 percent of S&P 500 businesses paid their CEO more than 100 times the average salary for their average worker in 2018, while nearly 10 percent of companies paid median incomes below the federal poverty line for a family was. of four.
In 2018, Mr Musk earned more than $ 2.28 billion from Tesla, including salary, stock options, stock valuation and other benefits, according to the report, while the median salary was $ 56,163.
One recent analysis revealed that the combined wealth of the 651 richest billionaires increased by more than $ 1 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic.
In a statement announcing executive pay legislation, Senator Sanders said the US is an oligarchic form of society where the rich are doing very well and working families are struggling in a way we have not seen since the Great Depression. do not have. . ”
“In a time of great inequality in income and prosperity, the American people demand that large, profitable businesses pay their fair share of taxes and treat their employees with the dignity and respect they deserve,” he said.
Under the exorbitant CEO tax law, which puts pressure on companies that earn the most to raise wages, tax fines will start at 0.5 percent for companies that pay their top executives between 50 and 100 times more than their regular workers.
According to lawmakers, Walmart would pay up to $ 854.9 million more in taxes and Home Depot up to $ 550.8 million more in taxes.