The Scoop

Elon Musk Defends Himself From Elizabeth Warren Twitter Attacks, Calls Her ‘Senator Karen’

By • December 17, 2021 11:22 am

Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk of “freeloading” and benefitting off “the rigged tax code”.

Warren seemed triggered by the announcement that Musk was named Time’s Person of the Year, responding on Twitter, “Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.”

Elon fired back, “And if you opened your eyes for 2 seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year.”

Musk added, “Don’t spend it all at once … oh wait you did already.” He added on another roast, sharing an article referencing Warren’s “lies about being Native American”, commenting “Stop projecting!”

He continued bashing her, saying, “You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason…Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.”

Business Insider reported that Musk may be honest about paying the most taxes this year, saying, “that’s because the Tesla CEO has been exercising a large number of options this year — and still has more to go.”

Bloomberg also reported, “The world’s richest person and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. could face a tax bill of more than $10 billion for 2021 if he exercises all his options due to expire next year. While it’s hard to say whether that would be a record — the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t publicly reveal individual tax filings — it would certainly rank as one of the biggest payments of all time. Musk faces the unusually high tax bill after exercising almost 15 million options and selling millions of shares to cover the taxes related to the transactions.”

In November, Musk posted a Twitter poll for his followers to decide whether or not he should sell 10% of his stock holdings in Tesla. The final results were 57.9% supporting and 42.1% against, with over 3.5 million voters.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted at the time. “Do you support this?”

“I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes,” Musk added. “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.”

The following morning Tesla’s share price fell by 5% and CNBC reported Musk could face a tax bill of over $15 billion due to his stock options. Musk has voiced his criticism towards tax reform in the past, saying on Twitter, “Eventually, they run out of other people’s money and then they come for you.”

Stay tuned to The Scoop for any updates.

Paul Aubert


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