Author: Yi Ran
As the individual who has benefited the most from the new crown epidemic, the world's richest man Musk's every move has been almost put under the microscope by the media in the past two years. Unlike the positive image that most rich people strive to create, Musk is the richest man who likes to make up for heat, is good at self-ridicule, and is keen to provide the media with all kinds of explosive news.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he is "considering" leaving and becoming a full-time influencer. But he did not elaborate.
Musk has a large following on social media platforms and has a huge influence in every word and deed, and it's unclear if he really wants to resign from his position.
Musk also lamented: "If only I could have more free time than just working day and night, that would be great!" Now, 7 days a week, from waking up in the morning to working until going to bed. ”
Musk was named 2021 Person of the Year
Recently, Musk has won another "honor".
On December 13, local time, the US "Time Magazine" announced that Tesla CEO and the world's richest man Musk was elected as the 2021 Person of the Year, and published an exclusive interview with Musk.
Time magazine lists a number of achievements that Musk has achieved in the most recent year:
His startup rocket company, SpaceX, has mastered the future of the U.S. space industry;
His car company, Tesla, controls 2/3 of the multibillion-dollar electric car market, with valuations of up to $1 trillion;
At one point, his net worth exceeded $320 billion, making him the richest citizen in history, at least in absolute numbers.
Musk's finger flicks and the stock market skyrockets or plummets; every sentence is on the lips of a large group of fans; and when he pushes the business global, he dreams of immigrating to Mars.
However, social media did not buy this result, and American netizens expressed their opposition.
Some netizens suggested that in the context of the epidemic situation in which medical staff worked hard to treat new crown patients, Musk's award for the annual person was completely shameless; some netizens questioned that this was the result of Musk's "financial strength" and successful public relations of the editorial board of Time Magazine; more American media directly posted: "Musk is not worthy." ”
The controversy was so loud that the editor-in-chief of Time magazine had to come forward to explain, declaring that the magazine's evaluation criteria had always been fixed, that the person of the year was "the person who has the greatest impact on the news or people's lives, for better or worse", and that Musk was chosen because of his influence, and he was even "reshaping life on Earth and beyond".
It's true that, on some level, Musk can be called the person who has the greatest impact on people's lives, but this year he is definitely the person who has the greatest impact on news.
Since Trump retired from the jianghu in early 2020, Musk can be said to have single-handedly supported the traffic of the US media industry. Even in China, far beyond the ocean, Musk has been on weibo's hot search list more than 75 times this year, and no entrepreneur can compare.
On December 10, Musk tweeted that he teased himself: "I am considering quitting my job and becoming an influencer full-time." What do you think? ”
According to statistics, on Twitter, Musk currently has 65.5 million followers, ranking 13th among all users. Imagine that in the busy work schedule, they can operate their social accounts so vigorously, and if Musk is a full-time blogger, other "Internet celebrities" are afraid that it will be more difficult to overcome.
In the context of the decline of traditional media, Musk does not necessarily need Time Magazine to add heat to himself, but Time Magazine is certainly interested in the traffic brought by putting Musk on the throne, not to mention musk very generously contributed exclusive long interviews.
Musk did not show much attention to the election of The Man of the Year, but only forwarded the Time Magazine report to express his gratitude. Subsequently, Musk continued to "fight" with netizens, and did not have the psychological baggage of becoming the "Person of the Year" at all.
$11 billion in huge taxes
The person of the year is only a "false name", and real money is musk's recent focus.
When the domestic social network was fined 1.341 billion yuan for Weiya's tax evasion, the news traffic exploded, and netizens lamented that they did not know the unit of Yiyi, musk will pay taxes this year will be 53 "Weiya".
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought huge fiscal spending to governments around the world, and the momentum to combat tax avoidance is intensifying. Many Governments have proposed or implemented new capital gains, inheritance and wealth taxes to finance social services and infrastructure projects.
For a long time, the rich in the United States have a rich variety of reasonable tax avoidance methods. In September, the U.S. Treasury Department reported that the richest 1 percent of the U.S. population evaded taxes an average of $163 billion a year, or about 28 percent of the nation's total unpaid taxes each year. With this estimate, the tax losses in the United States over the next 10 years could be as high as $7 trillion.
News site ProPublica broke the news that Musk's personal income tax in fiscal 2018 was zero, and he paid a total of $455 million in taxes in the five years from 2014 to 2018, and his personal wealth increased by $13.9 billion in the same period, and the actual tax rate was only 3.27%.
Musk, who followed the hot spot, refuted this statement at the first time, saying that he did not take a salary from SpaceX or Tesla, and the effective tax rate of stock options exercised was 53%, and his tax rate would be higher this year.
In October, Musk tweeted a series of tweets about the Democratic Party's "billionaire tax" program, shouting to the "melon-eating masses" that even if the super-rich are taxed at 100%, the government still needs to collect taxes from the general public to make up for the gap, which is basic arithmetic.
In 2020, Musk moved his home from California to Texas; this year, he moved Tesla's headquarters from California to Texas. Musk has repeatedly attacked California's tax policy, declaring that California was once a land of opportunities, and now that over-regulation, over-litigation, over-taxation and other issues are becoming more common, it is becoming more and more difficult to get things done in California.
Musk is good at using the voice of netizens to create momentum for his actions, and a tax payment that should be completed has become the reason for his recent large-scale dumping of Tesla stock.
In 2012, Tesla's board of directors proposed 10 operational goals to Musk, and for every 1 completed and the company's market value increased by $4 billion at the same time, Musk was granted 0.5% stock options. In the end, Musk completed 9 goals. With the options in his hand, Musk needs to buy 26.34 million shares of Tesla stock for $6.24 by August 2022, with a current market capitalization of more than $26 billion.
According to the IRS, this is Musk's personal income, which needs to be taxed like a salary.
In November, Musk hung a voting link on his Twitter account, asking netizens whether they supported him selling 10% of Tesla stock to pay taxes.
Musk's huge cash-out has naturally triggered a turmoil in Tesla's market value. Since he started selling, Tesla's market value has shrunk by 23 percent, evaporating nearly $285 billion.
On Dec. 20, Musk tweeted, "Open your eyes and think about it for two seconds, and you'll realize that I'm going to pay more taxes this year than any American in history." This is perhaps one of the few objective expressions musk has said, and according to himself, the tax payments will exceed $11 billion this year.
Musk has repeatedly stressed that he did not have a lot of cash in his hands before selling stocks to pay taxes, and his fate is completely linked to Tesla and SpaceX, "If Tesla goes bankrupt, I will also go bankrupt immediately." ”
Musk can't understand the metaverse
In the hearts of many netizens, especially after Zuckerberg's reputation plummeted, "Silicon Valley Iron Man" is indeed the richest person who can best reflect the spirit of the contemporary era.
In 2001, musk, 30, had achieved economic freedom with the map service site Zip2 and payment software PayPal, but a severe malaria outbreak nearly killed him. After recovering, Musk felt a sense of urgency, life is so short, he wants to use his limited time to look up at the stars, and the entrepreneurial goal becomes more ambitious.
After that, Musk began to study Mars exploration, involved in the rocket launch industry, and met Straubel, an engineer who developed electric vehicles, and became interested in lithium-ion batteries. In 2004, Musk raised $6.5 million in funding to a lithium-ion car startup called Tesla, becoming the company's largest investor and eventually completing the acquisition.
Straubel once said in an interview: "I've seen a lot of people with huge wealth, and they're very cautious. Musk has a completely opposite mindset. ”
Musk, who mingles with netizens, does not like to emphasize to the outside world that he is a rich man, nor does he like others to emphasize his personal influence, he takes the route of being close to the people, and he hopes that others will feel that he is a cool entrepreneur, a dreamer who has always walked on the trend of the times.
Musk said in an interview that his old rival Bezos "takes himself too seriously" and doesn't need to be so serious. Musk also joked that although Bezos has a very good engineering talent, he is not willing to focus more on engineering details, and if Blue Origin wants to catch up with SpaceX, then "Bezos has to spend less time in the hot bath." ”
At the event in early December, Musk declared that CEO was nothing more than a false title, and he had changed his internal title to "Technoking" consisting of "Techno" and "King", which can be translated as "King of Electronic Music".
Although he eats melons on the front line all the time, 50-year-old Musk sometimes feels overwhelmed.
This year, the concepts of metacosmity, NFT, Web3 and other concepts are on fire, and a decentralized Internet running on blockchain technology seems to have opened the curtain.
In a recent interview, Musk said that he did not see any noteworthy metaverse VR applications in the market, nor did he think that the metaverse would be able to land in the near future, he said: "Anyway, I didn't understand it, at least not yet." ”
However, Musk thinks that his lack of understanding may be because he is too old, not because there is something wrong with these concepts. After all, in 1995, many people could not see that the Internet would play such a great value now, he said with emotion: "Have I become a member of those people?" ”