It’s good to be Elon Musk.
How good, exactly? Well, good enough to piss off Robert Reich.
Musk recently hit a pretty major milestone, and Reich didn’t waste any time trying to crap all over it:
Elon Musk's wealth surpassed $200 billion this week. To put that into perspective, it would take the median U.S. worker 4,815,216 years to make that much.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 6, 2021
Thanks for your perspective, Robert.
— EEE(d) (@EEElverhoy) October 7, 2021
So what?@RBReich https://t.co/ksbn8rNxXU
— Nathan (@Nathan18207294) October 7, 2021
So what. https://t.co/wVuHbgWXPu
— Leslie McAdoo Gordon (@McAdooGordon) October 7, 2021
So Robert’s mad, OK?
How much of that do you want him to pay in taxes? Or is it just envy?
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 6, 2021
It’s envy, of course.
Nothing exposes complaints about wealth disparity as masked expressions of jealousy like the idea that it's unfair that the median U.S. worker makes a fraction of the wealth of the literal richest man on the planet. https://t.co/OYMwBS6EIg
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
Also Robert Reich is worth millions, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary from a public university, and charges $40,000 an hour for public speaking. Can rich people stop lecturing us on the evils of wealth?
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
You make the average worker's yearly salary in an hour. pic.twitter.com/6hvODP4vnu
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
As much as Robert Reich has made from railing against money, it still can’t hold a candle to Elon Musk’s wealth. And that’s the real problem here, isn’t it?
I'm additionally confused by the notion that wealth taxes are always painted as miniscule % increases that amount to a lot of raw dollars. But if that's true, Elon Musk will still be worth hundreds of billions anyway. So what's the endgame of this complaining?
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
His taxation lectures always apply to the 1%, which is convenient since Reich is in the top 2% in terms of wealth. https://t.co/uWboAKuiwX
— Noam "MF Blum" (@neontaster) October 7, 2021
As long as Robert Reich doesn’t have more money than literally everyone else, he will continue to inveigh against wealth. Guess we might as well get comfortable, because we’re gonna be listening to him complain for a while.
The American dream can suck a dick, I guess. https://t.co/MWITbpnIw1
— FSakes (@FSakes1000) October 7, 2021
Robert Reich’s entire livelihood depends on convincing Americans that the American Dream is beyond their reach. Nice work if you can get it.