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Quote: "With a net worth of $134.7B, Musk recently surpassed Bill Gates as the second-richest person in the world, and he's on track to earn more than $50 billi
by unnouinceput 6y ago
Quote: "With a net worth of $134.7B, Musk recently surpassed Bill Gates as the second-richest person in the world, and he's on track to earn more than $50 billion in stock options. If he remained in California, he’d be facing income taxes on the profits when he exercises them. In Texas, there is no income tax. "
Rest is blah blah, this right there is the real reason for such a move. Can't blame the man either, I'll do the same in his shoes.
- la6471 6y agoExcept that the man himself made some comments to let others know he is not happy with California not bending over backwards to his whim.
- samfisher83 6y agoHe benefits from government policies like the one for EV credit, and the one where companies have to buy carbon credits. Then when its time to contribute back its time to move.
- noemit 6y agoThere's federal income tax everywhere. He's saving quite a bit in state tax, not avoiding all income tax.
- thesausageking 6y agoI wouldn't. Being worth $120B Vs $150B isn't a material difference. At that level, I would say "California was good to me, I leveraged the ecosystem there and the state's generous tax subsidies for my product. I'm ok paying them what I owe."
- mixedCase 6y agoSo the state of California loaned him money and he hasn't paid it back? Otherwise he doesn't owe anything.
- BobbyJo 6y agoIt really is when you're the kind of person who routinely builds multi-billion dollar companies. You're talking about capital for several more moonshots.
- credit_guy 6y agoTwo kids talking. "If you had 1 million, would you give me half? Yes. If you had a bicycle, would you let me ride it from time to time? Yes. If you had an apple, would you share it with me? No. But why? Because I do have an apple."
- bhl 6y agoI would think being a billionaire, there isn't significant difference in quality of life living in California vs. Texas either. The "I'm ok paying them what I owe" also overlooks the public spats on Twitter and with re-opening the Fremont factory which got shutdown because of covid.
- tyingq 6y agoNo state income tax, but the property taxes in Texas are brutal. Typical sales taxes as well.
- fredophile 6y agoThat's okay. After he makes his money he can move back to California and pay lower property and sales taxes.
- m463 6y agoOn the Joe Rogan podcast he has said he rents now.
- stjohnswarts 6y agoYep I was going to add this. It sounds like he doesn't care if he has 10 huge houses or not and renting works just fine for him. Although he should thinking about hedging with some real estate, but I guess he probably already does that :)
- xur17 6y agoI gather that he's not really the kind of person to "hedge". He multiple times has gone "all in" on his businesses. And honestly, once you have hundreds of billions of dollars across multiple companies, do you really need to hedge?
- stjohnswarts 6y agoProbably not, you can easily sell off enough stocks even in a crash to be set for life (and probably multiple familial generations after you)
- jessaustin 6y agoUnless he buys a really big house he will enjoy the regressive nature of property and sales taxes.
- m463 6y agoOn mars there are no taxes of any kind.
- stjohnswarts 6y agobut why? I personally like Texas as a state more than California (terrain, weather, urban areas) but if I had that much money I wouldn't care if it was 80billion or 100 billion for God sakes how greedy can you be?
- fairity 6y agoIf I had to guess, he doesn't view the wealth as an end in and of itself. Rather, wealth is a means to achieve his stated goals: 1) to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy and 2) to make humans an interplanetary species. It's not too hard to imagine how these pursuits could benefit from an infusion of $xx billion.
- kleinsch 6y agoCA will still come after you for profits on options granted while you were a CA resident, even if you exercise after leaving CA.