If you thought your tax bill was hard to swallow, you need this news in your life.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO and the wealthiest man in the world, Elon Musk, said in a tweet that he’s paying more than $11 billion in taxes this year.
Musk has often been criticised for paying very little tax despite being immensely wealthy, which is partly due to him not taking a salary and receiving most of his compensation in stock options instead.
Following a Twitter poll in November, Musk started selling large amounts of Tesla stock, saying that the “only way” for him to pay taxes is to sell stock. However, his decision may have been prompted by a massive tax bill he was due on his stock options; CNBC first estimated it at more than $15 billion (the outlet later said Musk’s bill this year is likely to be around $12 billion, possibly the largest tax bill ever).
In a reply to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Twitter earlier this month, Musk himself said that he “will pay more taxes than any American in history this year”
While $11 billion in taxes sounds like a lot, Musk definitely won’t go bankrupt over it. His net worth is currently estimated at $244 billion according to Forbes, which is roughly $50 billion more than the next guy on the billionaires list – Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos.
