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Story: Elon Musk’s $220 Billion Tax Threat Grows as Wyden Bill Gains 20 Co-Sponsors

By Bruce Buterin

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Base Salary of $54,080, Fortune of $945 Billion. Musk's base salary at SpaceX is $54,080. It's been that way since 2019.

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Warren, California, and a Global Pile-On. Wyden isn't alone in pushing this direction. Senator Elizabeth Warren has reintroduced her…

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Elon Musk could owe $220 billion in taxes. That's not a typo, and it's not a fringe idea anymore.

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Senator Ron Wyden's Billionaires Income Tax proposal — co-sponsored by more than 20 lawmakers — would tax tradable assets like stocks at their market value every single year, not…

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Musk's wealth sits almost entirely in unsold stock. His SpaceX stake alone is valued at roughly $728.3 billion.

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Musk's base salary at SpaceX is $54,080. It's been that way since 2019. So on paper, his reported income looks almost laughably small compared to what he's actually worth.

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The proposed reforms would change that pretty fundamentally. If unrealized gains get taxed annually, Musk's tax bill becomes a moving target tied directly to stock performance.

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More context: XRP Drops Market Share as Ripples 4th-Ranked Token Fights Crypto Correction

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Wyden isn't alone in pushing this direction. Senator Elizabeth Warren has reintroduced her Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would hit net worth above $50 million with a 2% annual…

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California is also circling. The California Billionaire Tax Act would impose a 5% levy on billionaires' net worth, and it's headed for the ballot this November.

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Globally, the pressure is building from multiple directions. South Korea floated a plan to include unrealized stock and real estate gains in income tax calculations — and the…

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None of these proposals are law yet. That's the critical caveat. The Wyden bill has co-sponsors but hasn't cleared committee.

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More context: MAS Flags Hyperliquid on Investor Alert List, Citing No Singapore License

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But the direction of travel seems clear. More lawmakers, more countries, more proposals — all pointing at the same structural gap between how billionaires accumulate wealth and…

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Musk's $54,080 salary and $220 billion potential tax bill are basically the same story told from opposite ends.

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