Musk's Tax Bill This Year Hits 13 Trillion Won... Highest Among US Individual Taxpayers

▲Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and the world's richest person, is reported to pay more than $11 billion (about 13.1 trillion KRW) in taxes this year alone. This is the highest amount of individual tax paid in the United States.

On the 20th (local time), Musk revealed this on his Twitter. Musk wrote, "For those who are curious, I will pay more than $11 billion in taxes this year."

Bloomberg News reported, "If Musk actually pays more than $11 billion in taxes, it will be the largest amount of tax ever paid by an individual to the IRS in the United States."

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that if Musk exercises all stock options expiring next year, the taxes he has to pay this year could exceed $1.1 billion.

On the 6th of last month, Musk posted a sudden tweet asking whether to sell 10% of his Tesla shares, and then sold 12.9 million shares to secure $13.6 billion (about 16.218 trillion KRW) in funds, citing the need to pay taxes from stock options. During this period, Musk is known to have exercised stock options for a total of 17 million shares.

Earlier in June, investigative media ProPublica pointed out that billionaires including Musk paid little or no federal income tax in 2018.

According to ProPublica, despite a wealth increase of $13.9 billion from 2014 to 2018, Musk paid only $455 million in taxes.

In response, Musk rebutted, saying, "I do not receive a salary from Tesla or SpaceX," and "I pay taxes on exercised stock options at an effective tax rate of 53%."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.