Elon Musk's personal tax payments vary significantly year to year, with a massive ~$11 billion paid in 2021 due to exercising stock options, contrasting sharply with years like 2018 when he paid zero federal income tax, as his wealth grows primarily from unrealized stock gains, not salaries, leading to extremely low effective rates in many periods, though he pays taxes when he sells shares.
Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income between 2014 and 2018. According to ProPublica, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018. He stated his 2021 tax bill was estimated at $12 billion based on his sale of $14 billion worth of Tesla stock.
“I'm the largest individual tax payer in history. I pay over $10 billion in tax." — Elon Musk says.
In 2024, Tesla reported $2.3 billion in U.S. income yet paid zero federal income tax. Over the past three years, the company earned $10.8 billion domestically and paid only $48 million in federal taxes, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 0.4%, significantly below the statutory corporate tax rate of 21%.
New York tax expert Robert Willens tells Barron's that Zuckerberg faces a 23.8% federal tax bite—20% federal tax on dividend income and a 3.8% Medicare surcharge—plus the top 13.3% state income-tax rate in California.
One of the biggest reasons Bezos pays little in personal income tax is that he doesn't rely on a traditional salary. Instead, he holds most of his wealth in Amazon stock. Here's why this matters: Capital gains taxes are much lower than income taxes in most cases.
Googlers call Zuckerberg's approach the 80 percent rule
She calls this idea the 80 percent rule. It states you should schedule only about 80 percent of your days. Leave 20 percent open to absorb whatever craziness comes up.
In some years, billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and George Soros paid no federal income taxes at all. Billionaires avoid these taxes by taking out special ultra-low-interest loans available only to them and using their assets as collateral.
The top 10 percent of income earners pay more than 60 percent of all federal taxes and 72 percent of income taxes, shares that have been increasing over time.
Billionaires often employ the “buy, borrow, die” strategy to avoid income and capital gains taxes. First, they acquire appreciating assets like stocks or real estate. Instead of selling these assets when they need cash (which would trigger capital gains tax), they borrow against them at favorable interest rates.
Over the years, Musk and his businesses have received at least $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies and tax credits, often at critical moments, a Washington Post analysis has found, helping seed the growth that has made him the world's richest person. The payments stretch back more than 20 years.
There are several ways to reduce tax bills and pay no taxes legally, and one of the easiest ways is to take full advantage of a self-employment tax deduction scheme. In the US, this deduction allows you to deduct a portion of your self-employed income from your taxable profit, provided there are allowable expenses.
The value of Tesla's brand fell by 26% in 2024, declining for the second consecutive year. It shed $15 billion, according to research from Brand Finance. The electric vehicle giant's brand is now valued at approximately $43 billion, down from $58.3 billion at the start of 2024.
Pop superstar Beyoncé and the IRS agree that she owes $709.20 in tax and penalties instead of the nearly $2.7 million that the agency had asserted in a deficiency notice, according to a stipulated decision approved by the Tax Court . The decision document in Knowles-Carter v.
Mark Zuckerberg famously became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 23 in 2008 after Facebook went public, though more recently, in late 2025, a trio of 22-year-olds (Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha) from the AI company Mercor beat his record, becoming the youngest self-made tech billionaires.
Zuckerberg has never revealed his own political affiliation or voting history.
The Facebook cofounder and CEO became a millionaire in 2006 at age 22. It didn't take long for him to make the leap from self-made millionaire to billionaire. At the age of 23, Facebook's IPO made Zuckerberg the youngest self-made billionaire in history.