For Immediate Release
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Four commas is two too many: Elon Musk is a trillion-dollar problem
“Congrats Elon, you won capitalism. Now pay your damn taxes.”
WASHINGTON, DC—Elon Musk has become the world’s first trillionaire ahead of the initial public offering of SpaceX. As a trillionaire, his wealth now exceeds the GDPs of most countries, giving him an unprecedented amount of power both here and abroad.
Reaching this ominous milestone so soon was once viewed as implausible, but was made possible by a federal revenue code that taxes investment income lightly—when it does so at all—and ensures that huge fortunes can be passed from one generation to the next with almost no limits.
Throughout his career, Musk has proven to be adept at exploiting the tax rules of his adopted country to pay back as little as possible while taking full advantage of the publicly funded resources and federal grants that have made his companies successful. News reports published in 2021 revealed that Musk paid zero dollars in federal income taxes in 2018, even as his wealth grew to $13.9 billion that year. Over the four-year period between 2014-2018, he paid a true tax rate of just 3.27%—lower than many working-class households.
During the Trump era, billionaire Musk has used his wealth to reshape the federal government, fire federal regulators investigating his companies, gain access to Americans’ private data, install his allies in key government positions, and influence elections. Now trillionaire Musk has control over more wealth than any one private individual in the history of mankind.
In response, Erica Payne, the Founder and President of Patriotic Millionaires, released the following statement:
“86% of Americans are worried about the price of food. Elon Musk is a trillionaire. These two things are deeply, inherently connected. The level of wealth that Mr. Musk has reached requires human exploitation, wage theft, wage suppression, anti-competitive markets, monopolistic control, price collusion, inadequate tax systems, and corruption. Mostly inadequate tax systems and corruption.
Four commas is two too many!
The good news is that now it’s out in the open. Everyone can see it. Over the last 60 years both political parties failed to address the structural certainty of a destabilizing level of inequality. Our lawmakers have built a political economy that guarantees the end to our way of life.
The economic stress facing Americans today is the undercurrent to the social and civil unrest we see playing out before us. When the economic system of a country doesn’t provide enough benefit to enough people, they reject the political system that created it. That’s where we are. That’s the effect of faulty math.
We must destabilize concentrated levels of wealth, because money is no longer just money—it’s power and control. And no one person—not even a trillionaire—is entitled to the keys to our democracy and our economy. America’s slide into oligarchy necessitates bold actions to reclaim democratic capitalism and forge a prosperous, equitable, and just future. We’ve got a plan to do exactly that.
Congrats Elon, you won capitalism. Now pay your damn taxes.”
For interview requests with Erica Payne, Board Chair Morris Pearl, or other members of the Patriotic Millionaires, please contact Jenna Grande at jenna@patrioticmillionaires.org.
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