Bernie Sanders clashes with Elon Musk over massive fortune

Elon Musk says hes hoarding wealth for a good cause but its not good enough for US Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The left-wing lawmaker targeted the billionaire Tesla CEO after Musk claimed he would use his giant fortune to support life on other planets.

Sanders a Vermont independent whos a powerful gadfly on the Democratic Partys left flank first went after Musk last week by pointing out the massive wealth disparity that he and fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos exemplify.

We are in a moment in American history where two guys Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos own more wealth than the bottom 40 [percent] of people in this country, Sanders tweeted on Thursday. That level of greed and inequality is not only immoral. It is unsustainable.

The website CleanTechnica which frequently covers Tesla took umbrage with Sanders comments in an article calling criticisms of Musk over his wealth ridiculous.

Musk offered his own defense in response to the article on Twitter, saying his fortune will go toward his spacefaring ambitions. His rocket-building company, SpaceX, wants to land humans on Mars by 2026.

I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary & extend the light of consciousness to the stars, Musk tweeted early Sunday morning.

But that didnt satisfy Sanders, who introduced a proposal last week to hike corporate taxes on companies that pay top executives at least 50 times more than their median workers pay.

Space travel is an exciting idea, but right now we need to focus on Earth and create a progressive tax system so that children dont go hungry, people are not homeless and all Americans have healthcare, Sanders said in response to Musks tweet. The level of inequality in America is obscene and a threat to our democracy.

Sanders also called out Musk last August when he proposed taxing 60 percent of the wealth that American billionaires gained during the coronavirus pandemic.

Musk was worth less than $30 billion at the start of 2020 before his electric-car makers stock price exploded, giving him a net worth of $170 billion as of Sunday, according to Bloombergs Billionaires Index.

Bezos the Amazon CEO whose $181 billion fortune is the only one to outrank Musks had not responded to Sanders latest criticism online by Monday morning.

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Bernie Sanders clashes with Elon Musk over massive fortune