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Comment by HenryKissinger | Hacker News Reader

I find these "Billionaire X now richer than other billionaire Y" pieces a complete waste of time. I doubt the billionaires in question even care. So what's even the point?

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What I want to see is "Billionaire X now paying more tax than other billionaire Y" or "Billionaire X now raising minimum salary in his company by 50%".

I would love Musk an especially SpaceX to pay as least tax as possible. I sincerely hope SpaceX pays none. I would love other entrepreneurs to be as motivated as possible to do things like Musk does, and have them have as much funds for it as possible.

Where do you draw the line between SpaceX and companies like it, and the rest?

Perhaps the commenter wants no companies to pay taxes?

That's actually a pretty popular position amongst mainstream economists.

Somewhere around taking the profit out of the corporation

See Estonian corporate tax

Apart from the unsolvable problem of where to draw the line for tax exemptions like that: If a for-profit company can’t succeed while contributing to society like everyone else, it’s just not worthwhile. Objectively innovative companies like SpaceX have few issues attracting funding, anyway.

SpaceX doesn't pay any tax and it never will. To pay tax you have to make a profit. They're definitely not doing that now: both Starlink and Starship are each estimated to cost well over a billion dollars to develop, yet their revenue per launch is at most $20 million if you're generous. (edit: SpaceX has advised that Starlink will cost 2-3 billion to develop and Starship will cost 10 billion)

Once Starlink gets going many expect it to rake in the cash but Musk has said quite explicitly that they're going to spend it on going to Mars. It wouldn't be hard to structure that spending either as expenses or charity. So again, no profit to be taxed on.

This is of course why he's keeping SpaceX private. Investors have to understand that SpaceX's future profits are going to Mars, not back to the investors.

edit: this isn't completely true. They do plan on spinning off Starlink, so if they do it should be profitable and pay taxes. Musk may shuffle his Starlink profits into a Mars expdition, but Starlink itself will pay taxes and other owners will end up paying capital gains taxes etc.

I don't know how generous they are but apparently most employees get stick grants and options.

> Unlike most automotive companies, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) offers stock options and grants to all of its employees.

> Regardless of rank or position, all Tesla employees are offered this benefit.

https://m.benzinga.com/article/16542751

I've worked at places where everyone got stock, but it was orders of magnitude different for engineers and non-engineers. I bought a house, my friend in support paid down their credit card debt.

The latter is a bit meaningless by itself. Eg Google's employs janitors and baristas only indirectly via other companies, so they don't bring down the minimum or average salary.

In any case, customer surplus is the thing to watch out for.

Amazon has a good track record with that. Indirect evidence: a while ago the moment they announced that they were getting into the health insurance business, healthcare companies' stocks dropped.

See eg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-30/health-st...

Humans enjoy idolising the rich. I do wonder if there's an evolutionary reason for this. Perhaps we're primed to listen to the person in the tribe who is best at gathering resources.

Idolize is a bit over the top, but I admire people who get big things done. Even if it is with a lot of help from a big hard-working team. The net worth part of it is indeed interesting too, for about two seconds, but getting shit done more so.

they don't. It's other people who look on with envy that cares - after all, these articles gets clicks.

billionaires have huge egos

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