Elon Musk Believes U.S. Should ‘Delete’ All Government Subsidies

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.