Dear Elon Musk,
As I stood outside the Tesla auto showroom on Van Ness Street in San Francisco, as I joined the crowd with its signs calling you a Musk Rat, a Fascist and (worst of all) President, I wondered if you were aware how low your ratings have fallen in some polls.
At last report only 34 percent of the public approves of your current efforts to reduce fraud and waste in government, and that was before you threatened 2.3 million federal workers with firing. Visits by you and your associates (sometimes called the Muskateers) to the Treasury Department, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Internal Revenue Service have alarmed many taxpayers. Those upset by your visits include now-fired government employees who were investigating wrongdoing by your own companies.
While your team of investigators wanted to access I.R.S. files in Washington, I was able to find some stories about Tesla’s nonpayment of taxes without leaving San Francisco. I found an Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy statement that your own company, Tesla’s “annual financial report … shows the company enjoyed $2.3 billion of U.S. income in 2024 on which it reports precisely zero current federal income tax. Over the past three years, the Elon Musk-led company reports $10.8 billion of U.S. income on which its current federal tax was just $48 million. That comes to a three-year federal tax rate of just 0.4 percent— more than 50 times less than the statutory corporate tax rate of 21 percent.”
The New York Times reports that for Space X rocket and satellite launches your company pays no tax to support air traffic control, unlike commercial airlines that pay for every takeoff. Your lawyer would probably say you didn’t evade taxes, you just didn’t pay them.
As I stood with the protesters on Van Ness Street, it occurred to me that you could improve your ratings considerably if you agreed in public to pay higher taxes, a full 21 percent of what you earned in recent years. You could set an example for the other billionaires, and say that paying taxes is patriotic, that you want to support the government and its programs even if they will be considerably smaller before your work is done.
To improve your public standing in San Francisco, you could deposit a billion or two in City Hall’s coffers. I understand that Mayor Daniel Lurie plans to ask his wealthy friends for financial support of his programs. I know you’re no longer a Bay Area resident, you have an office in the White House and you’ve moved X (formerly Twitter) headquarters to Texas. But as a parting gift to San Francisco, you could set an example for the local billionaires, and show them you want this city to keep its Muni buses running alongside all the Teslas.
You can afford it, and a billion or two might go far in reducing the size of the dissident crowds outside the local Tesla showroom every Saturday, where’ll they be calling your activities in Washington undemocratic and Xecrable.
There is one other recourse you have to improve your standing here and across the country. Hold a final press conference in the White House, before the president decides to fire you when he needs a high-placed scapegoat to appease the public over his errant reign. Standing in the Oval Office with your young son on your shoulders while the President squirms at his desk, you could tell the select reporters admitted into the room:
“I came to Washington to find fraud and waste, and I found it all over the place. But the greatest source of fraud in government is right here, seated at the Resolute Desk. His name is Donald Trump.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Joel Schechter is the author of several books on satire.
