Elon Musk said during the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit on Monday that he supports the idea of getting rid of all government subsidies, specifically the ones laid out in the Biden Administration’s infrastructure bill.
“Just delete them all,” Musk said, per The Verge, citing concerns over increasing the country’s budget deficit. “We’ve spent so much money...the federal budget deficit is insane.” While the nation’s debt stands at a reported $29 trillion, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill will add $256 billion to the national budget deficit over the next decade.
Musk, who was worth over $250 billion in late October, mentioned that Tesla, which recently became just the sixth company in the United States to be valued a $1 billion, has been selling its electric cars for over a year in the country without the $7,500 federal tax credit.
Musk announced in October that the Tesla headquarters was relocating from California to Texas. While he claimed that “scale” played a factor in the decision, Bloomberg Wealth reports the move, along with the sale of his properties in the California, conveniently helped him save half a billion dollars in capital-gains taxes.
Elon proposed selling 10 percent of Tesla stock, worth nearly $5 billion, and left the decision up to his Twitter followers. However, you feel about that approach, all that matters is it will reportedly also help trim his tax bill by over $2 billion. All that matters is it will benefit Elon.
A 2015 Los Angeles Times investigation found that Tesla, SolarCity, and SpaceX was assisted by “$4.9 billion in government support.” Musk was most likely in favor of government subsidies then. Elon wasn’t complaining when Austin officials approved nearly $50 million in tax rebates over the next 10 years to bring his factory to Texas. Similarly, when Nevada offered the largest incentives package in state history, which included almost $1.3 billion in tax benefits, in exchange for bringing one of their Gigafactories.
Maybe the reason why he wants to get rid of all government subsidies is because it no longer benefits him.
