[Hoot Gibson]

Musk paid 0 in federal income tax in 2018 and then received almost $100,000,000 in federal money for his internet venture.

That's quite an allegation. Is there any evidence that Elon Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018 and that Elon Musk received almost $100,000,000 for "his" internet venture? If so, how did that dastardly scoundrel justify the windfall and escape the clutches of the IRS? I'm just curious.

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-paid-0-in-federal-income-tax-in-2018-report-1847051810

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/08/bezos-musk-buffett-bloomberg-icahn-and-soros-pay-little-in-taxes.html

https://slate.com/technology/2021/09/sta...-fund.html

So, Musk is following our tax law and has paid well over a billion dollars in income taxes ($1.4 million on $6.5 billion of income from 2006 through 2018 alone) but it is not enough. To make Musk into a bigger deadbeat, liberals have concocted a "true tax rate," which combines Musk's taxable income with the increase in the value of his stock holdings for the same time period. The "true tax rate" is nonsense intended to demonize wealthy Americans who are just following the law. Musk pays taxes on income as he sells his stock, which means that in some years, he has very little reportable income, and in other years he pays many millions of dollars in taxes.

As for the federal money paid to Musk's Starlink, anybody who has a beef with the federal government determining that Starlink can provide cost-effective internet to rural users should take up the issue with their elected officials. It is very expensive to provide terrestrial infrastructure to provide internet service in sparsely populated areas of the country. The same is true for mobile phone service. The Slate article that you posted decries the fact that poor people will not be able to afford the cost of a satellite dish and the monthly subscription for the service. My suggestion is for those poor people to learn to program or to perform another marketable service to pay for good internet service. Starlink will offer many people the opportunity to telework from home - from an area with a lower cost of living, cleaner air, and better views than their city counterparts. When you factor in the potential savings for telecommuters and the environmental benefits, Starlink's cost is a tremendous bargain.

Musk is a visionary who has risked his fortune several times on unproven technologies that nobody else had tried to develop on a commercial scale. Tesla is now the world's most valuable automobile manufacturer. Other Musk companies are on the cutting edge of technologies in batteries, tunneling, reusable rockets, and satellite-linked internet. The jobs that these companies created did not exist before Musk came along because he pioneered commercial development of each of the technologies.

Dislike Musk all you want. He sounds like a horrible guy to have as an immediate boss, but Musk is still an American hero. He has not grown wealthy through government subsidies or through hostile takeovers of competing companies. He has not grown wealthy by becoming a crooked elected official exploiting insider information and extorting payments from wealth creators. Musk has created innovative products and technologies and has overcome an extreme amount of bureaucratic red tape in the process.

The argument is the law.  The tax code is wrong and when common Conservatives hold up the GOP platform they vote against what is best for America.  

I agree Musk is a visionary.  Not an American Hero just a billionaire businessman like Gates, Bezos, Bloomberg, Buffet (I'm sure you wouldn't call those guys American heroes, Hoot)   Musk is a man who has benefitted from our failure to hold the rich accountable.  That responsibility falls on the politicians we elect and it turns out both sides are guilty of putting crooked poltiicians in office.

You are dead wrong, Cardfan1. I don't value people based on their political beliefs. I disagree with Bezos on nearly all of his political positions, but I consider him as much a hero as Elon Musk. Bezos created his wealth in a market that he created through his own efforts. Musk and Bezos share a very optimistic vision of the future that involves developing commercial ventures throughout the Solar System and beyond, including human colonies to ensure that our species does not become extinct as the result of a global disaster.

As for Gates, Bloomberg, and Buffet, I have much more respect for them most politicians in either party. I don't consider them to be on the same level as Musk and Bezos because much of their wealth has come at the expense of eliminating competition and destroying jobs, but they have all been positives for the American economy.

You and your ilk look at wealthy men like Musk and Bezos as demons who have become wealthy by depriving others of their wealth, which is almost never how rich people accumulate their wealth. I recognize the monumental contributions to our economy and society that such men make. I am perfectly comfortable criticizing Bezos's political agenda while admiring and respecting his positive contributions to this world. You cannot seem to get past the fact that Musk is not a liberal and he has more money than you would see in a thousand lifetimes.