Let's Maybe Not Build That Robot Army and Tax Billionaires Instead

Hey, y'all! Let's check in on Tesla, the lovable little electric car company with the wacky CEO. They just had their 3rd quarter earnings call.

[Musk:] My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future? That's my biggest concern. That is really the only thing I'm trying to address with this. It's called compensation, but it's not like I'm going to go spend the money. It's just, if we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over that robot army, not current control, but a strong influence? That's what it comes down to in a nutshell. I don't feel comfortable wielding that robot army if I don't have at least a strong influence.

Oh my. Apparently, Elon is cranky about resistance to his proposed $180 quadrillion (I'm rounding) compensation package. The theory goes that if he can't have all of his moneys, then his robot army can't solve poverty and also perform surgeries on everybody.

[Musk:] Going beyond sustainable energy to say, sustainable abundance is the mission, where we believe with Optimus and self-driving, we can actually create a world where there is no poverty, where everyone has access to the finest medical care. Optimus will be an incredible surgeon, for example. Imagine if everyone had access to an incredible surgeon. Of course, we make sure Optimus is safe and everything, but I do think we're headed for a world of sustainable abundance. I'm excited to work with the Tesla team to make that happen.

You know, I'm starting to think that we can have billionaires like Elon, impregnating various women at an aggressive clip and building robot armies, or we can have liberal democracy, but we cannot have both.

So here's what I propose: any Democrat running for a federal office needs to commit to: 1) nationalizing SpaceX; 2) terminating all federal contracts to any Elon-affiliated companies; and 3) restoring marginal tax rates to levels that don't allow the creation of new Elons and passing some kind of wealth tax on the Elons we've already created. Here's a handy table showing historical marginal tax rates:

I mean, we've done this before. We can do it again. It's not a coincidence that the period of time that many folks consider America's heyday is the same period that the wealthy were carrying a more equitable share of the societal burden.

We don't need a robot army. We need to tax billionaires out of existence.