Elon Musk canes Elizabeth ‘Karen’ Warren in tax feud

The world’s richest man has lampooned Democrat Elizabeth Warren for accusing him of paying little tax.

Elon Musk was named TIME Person of the Year. Picture: Getty Images.

The world’s richest man, electric car pioneer Elon Musk, has lampooned powerful Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren as a “Karen” after she called him a freeloader for paying little tax, ratcheting up the Tesla billionaire’s running feud with the Democrats.

Mr Musk, with 67 million Twitter followers, clashed with the twice former presidential candidate Warren, an advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy, only a few weeks after urging Congress to vote down entirely the President’s signature Build Back Better reform bill.

“Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” Senator Warren tweeted on Tuesday, referring to Mr Musk, who was named Time magazine’s person of the year earlier in the week for his contributions to business and space exploration.

Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else. https://t.co/jqQxL9Run6

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 13, 2021

Mr Musk, who faces a multibillion dollar capital gains tax bill this year, said he would pay more tax in 2021 than “any American in history”, which the senator would know “if [she] opened [her] eyes for 2 seconds”.

Mr Musk pledged to sell 10 per cent of his Tesla holding after conducting a poll of his Twitter followers, which could trigger tax obligations up to US $15bn.

“Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen,” Mr Musk went on, referring to a name that is sometimes used to criticise entitled middle aged women since the coronavirus pandemic began.

“You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason,” he added.

Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen 🙏

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021

You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 14, 2021

Mr Musk, whose net wealth surpassed US$300bn in October as the value of his privately held space exploration company SpaceX surged above US$100bn, last month urged Congress to vote down the entirety of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill.

“Honestly, I would just can this whole bill,” Mr Musk said of the US$1.75 trillion bill, which encompasses massive renewable energy subsidies and extra social security payments.

“Don’t pass it. That’s my recommendation,” he added, speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference.

The bill, which is struggling to pass the Senate in the face of opposition from two sceptical Democrat senators who hold the balance of power, includes $12,500 tax credit for the purchase of electric cars, but only if they are made in the US by unionised labour.

“Rules and regulations are immortal,” Musk said. “They don’t die. The vast majority of rules and regulations live forever … there’s not really an effective garbage collection system for removing rules and regulations, so this hardens the arteries of civilisation,” he added.

Elizabeth Warren speaks to reporters as she walks to a vote in the Senate Chambers of the Capitol. Picture: AFP.

Mr Musk, an outspoken critic of the Biden administration’s response to Covid-19, who last year said Sweden was “right” to avoid lockdowns, announced he would move Tesla’s headquarters from California to Texas in September, citing restrictive tax and pandemic rules.

Also chief executive of Tesla, which controls around two-third of the global electric car markets, Mr Musk also called President Biden a union-controlled “sock puppet” in October.

Tesla’s workforce, unlike those of Ford and General Motors, is not unionised. In March the National Labor Relations Board, which protects the rights of workers to join a union, ordered Mr Musk to delete anti-union tweets.

Mr Musk has also championed cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Dogecoin, which Tesla has said it will accept for payment, in the face of a crackdown on such assets by the White House which argues they facilitate crime and financial instability.

Senator Warren has advocated for an annual wealth tax of 4 per cent on wealth in excess of $1bn.

“Don’t spend it all at once … oh wait you did already,” Mr Musk also tweeted at the senator, referring to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill would add $158bn to the federal deficit over the next decade.