‘The world’s richest freeloader has a very thin skin’: Elizabeth Warren hits back at Elon Musk for calling her ‘Senator Karen’ as their war of words over his taxes intensifies

• In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren clapped back at Elon Musk for calling her ‘Senator Karen’
• She, in turn, called him ‘the world’s richest freeloader,’ on Wednesday and claimed he ‘evidently has a very thin skin’
• The remarks come after Musk was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year
• Warren tweeted after the announcement that he should have to pay taxes and ‘stop freeloading off everyone else’
• Musk soon hit back saying she reminded her of his friend’s ‘angry Mom’
• He then called her ‘Senator Karen’ and asked her not to call the manager on him
• Musk has previously been criticized for his failure to pay taxes 
• He is now expected to pay $15 billion in August 2020 on stock options he was awarded back in 2012

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has dubbed Elon Musk ‘the world’s richest freeloader’ as the war of words over the billionaire Tesla founder’s taxes continues.

The war began after the news broke that Musk was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, with Warren tweeting on Monday: ‘Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.’

Musk soon hit back, writing, ‘Stop projecting,’ and linking to a Fox News opinion article claiming Warren lied about having Native American heritage to benefit from affirmative action.  

‘You remind me of when I was a kid and my friend’s angry Mom would just randomly yell at everyone for no reason,’ Musk continued.

‘Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen.’

But in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday, Warren clapped back, calling Musk ‘the world’s richest freeloader,’ and claiming he ‘evidently has a very thin skin.’

In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Wednesday, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, right, clapped back at Tesla founder Elon Musk for calling her ‘Senator Karen’ by saying he is ‘the world’s richest freeloader,’ and claiming he ‘evidently has a very thin skin’

The comments came as Joy Reid gave the Massachusetts senator a chance to respond to Musk’s now infamous ‘Senator Karen’ tweet.

Elon Musk was named Time Magazine’s 2021 Person of the Year 

The MSNBC host prefaced her interview by calling Musk ‘the absolute worst,’ highlighting his opposition to President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, and noting that, even though he has called for an end to government subsidies, electric vehicle subsidies helped Tesla get ahead.

Then, after quoting Warren’s tweet, Reid touted a ProPublica report, saying: ‘Its investigation found that in 2018, Musk paid nothing in federal income taxes, and less than $70,000 in 2015 and 2017.’

She then turned the conversation over to Warren to get her thoughts on Musk’s tweet about her, to which Warren replied: ‘The world’s richest freeloader evidently has a very thin skin.

‘But you know the part that makes me angry about this?’ she continued.

‘It’s on behalf of every public school teacher, every waitress, every computer programmer, every street cleaner who actually paid taxes, and that means they paid more than Elon Musk did in federal income taxes.

‘And that’s just not right, and it means the system is broken.

‘But the days when these guys not only get to rake it all in, but then rub everybody else’s nose in it while they head off into outer space and declare how they did this all on their own when they were subsidized by the federal government and subsidized by every waitress and public school teacher who paid their taxes’ is over.

‘This is wrong and Elon Musk needs to eat a big dish of that,’ she concluded. 

Musk is pictured on Monday after being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticized Telsa CEO Elon Musk after he was named Time Magazine’s 2021 Person of the Year. She called on him to pay his fair share of taxes

Musk attacked the senator on Twitter and dubbed her Senator Karen

But Warren’s tweet was not the first time the billionaire has slammed politicians critical of his wealth and alleged exploitation of tax loopholes to pay little or no taxes at all. 

Last month, Musk mocked Sen. Bernie Sanders who called on the nation’s ‘extremely wealthy’ to pony up more cash in a tweet, drawing the attention of Musk, who had sold more than $5 billion of his Tesla stake.

Musk did so after launching a Twitter poll that guided him toward selling $25 billion in stock to fund President Joe Biden’s proposed billionaire tax.

Musk, responding to Sanders’ demands, indicated he wouldn’t draw the line there.

‘I keep forgetting that you’re still alive,’ Musk, the world’s richest man, tweeted at the senator.

‘Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word …’

He also attacked Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, of Oregon, who supported a wealth tax for billionaires and criticized Musk’s twitter poll.

‘Whether or not the world’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn’t depend on the results of a Twitter poll,’ Wyden wrote. ‘It’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax.’

Musk lashed back by mocking Wyden’s face, writing, ‘Why does ur pp look like u just came?’ 

His row with Warren, though, comes as the Tesla founder was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year after selling off his possessions and moving to Texas, launching rockets into space, inventing new driverless cars, sharing his Asperger’s diagnosis while hosting Saturday Night Live and influencing the stock market with this tweets.

In his bid to become the Person of the Year, Musk spoke with Time Magazine and discussed his ‘semi-separated’ status with Grimes, slammed vaccine mandates as an ‘erosion of freedom’ and shared his plans to fly a Noah’s ark spaceship packed full of animals to Mars as he works to colonize the planet.

As of Monday, Musk has a net worth of $265.4 billion. Speaking about being the richest man in the world and all of history Musk pointed to someone who he claims is even richer than he is.

‘Well, I think there’s like some, you know, sovereigns. I think [Russia’s] President Putin is significantly richer than me. I can’t invade countries and stuff,’ Musk said.  

‘When looking at income and asset distribution, it is very important to normalize that for age. So as societies age, there are more older people; the older somebody is, the richer they are,’ he explained. 

‘But a lot of the push for higher government involvement and expropriation of assets by the government is pushed by a bunch of politicians who are actually saying that resources shouldn’t be in control of private individuals. They should be in control of the government,’ Musk said. 

One of the billionaire’s biggest criticisms is his enormous wealth, while paying little to none in taxes. Recently, he openly bashes President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan, which is fully funded by ‘the very largest corporations and the wealthiest Americans.’ 

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO made history several times this year including SpaceX’s September launch of the first all-civilian crew into space. The aerospace company also won a $3 billion contract with NASA- sparking a feud with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos. 

Musk, left, is expected to have to pay $15 billion in taxes in August for stock options he was awarded in 2012. He is pictured with Time Magazine Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal on Monday after being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

The SpaceX CEO commented on the success of the aerospace company. 

‘If we have ships and boosters but no engines, we would be losing billions of dollars a quarter. And if that continued, then bankruptcy would not be out of the question,’ he admitted. 

‘I feel as though we’ve had many years of success and a lot of people at the company have never seen a launch failure. A lot of people have never in their career experienced a recession,’ Musk boasted. 

‘If somebody entered the workforce after 2009, it just seemed like things always go up. I was concerned that we may be getting complacent,’ he shared. 

Musk has described himself as a ‘utopian anarchist’ and aims to utilize his businesses to create a more efficient and automated future. 

‘If there’s a utopia where people have access to any goods or services that they want, there’s plenty for everyone. If we have a highly automated future with the robots that can do anything, then any work you do will be because you want to do it, not because you have to do it. I don’t mean to suggest chaos, but rather that you’re not under anyone’s thumb,’ Musk said. 

But the billionaire is now facing a tax bill of more than $15 billion, which will come due in the coming months on stock options, CNBC reports.

In 2012, when Tesla was just a fledgling company, Musk was awarded stock options as part of a compensation plan that would give him 22.8 million shares at a stock price of $6.24. His gains on those shares have now reached nearly $28 billion.

Stock options give the investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at an agree-upon price. It also allows the trader to choose a specific date when they expect a stock to rise or fall, known as the expiration date, according to Investopedia.

In Musk’s case, his stock options come due in August 2022, and in order to exercise them, Musk has to pay the the income taxes on the gains, and since they are taxes as an employee benefit or compensation, they will be taxed at 37 percent, plus the 3.8 percent net investment tax, CNBC reports.

Musk will also have to pay the top tax rate in California, since the options were granted and earned when he was a California resident.

Combined, CNBC reports, the state and federal tax rate on his gains will be 54.1 percent, so the total tax bill would be $15 billion by August. 

Meanwhile, Telsa has disclosed that he has taken out loans using his shares as collateral, and with the sales, he may want to repay some of those obligations.

As the company noted in its third-quarter Securities and Exchange 10Q filing: ‘If the price of our common stock were to decline substantially, Mr. Musk may be forced by one or more of the banking institutions to sell shares of Tesla common stock to satisfy his loan obligations if he could not do so through other means.

‘Any such sales could cause the price of our common stock to decline further.’

Tesla closed at $975.99 on Wednesday, up more than 1 percent from the day before. 

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