{"id":45642,"date":"2025-12-16T11:34:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45642"},"modified":"2025-12-16T11:34:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:34:31","slug":"petition-signers-want-elon-musk-to-be-the-richest-man-in-town-this-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/petition-signers-want-elon-musk-to-be-the-richest-man-in-town-this-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Petition Signers Want Elon Musk to Be \u2018The Richest Man in Town\u2019 This Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A graphic shows billionaire Elon Musk superimposed into an image from the film \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0(Image by Tax Justice Network)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

… by giving nearly half of his $500 billion fortune to the children of the world.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 15, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s make the world\u2019s richest man the richest man in town!\u201d urges a new campaign launched Friday by the economic advocacy group Tax Justice Network, borrowing a memorable line from the classic film \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group\u2019s global petition<\/a> emphasizes that SpaceX owner Elon Musk<\/a> is already the richest person in the world, with a net worth<\/a> of $508.4 billion\u2014more than double the assets of the planet\u2019s next-richest person, Google co-founder Larry Page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We Must Overturn Citizens United,\u2019 Says Sanders as Analysis Details Billionaire Takeover of US Politics<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"President<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Global System \u2018Rigged for the Wealthy\u2019 Delivers World With \u2018More Billionaires Than Ever\u2019<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Tax Justice Network\u2019s (TJN) petition invites Musk to give 44% of his wealth\u2014$223.6 billion\u2014to the children<\/a> of the world. That amount of money would allow the purchase of a $90 gift card for all 2.4 billion of the planet\u2019s children under the age of 18, and could stop more than 100 million children from going hungry this holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Musk would still be the richest person alive, emphasized the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/embed\/did:plc:fgoepbirxjnyqknb6smhb2km\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3m7sgdg754s2n?id=2719323848113422&ref_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.commondreams.org%252Fnews%252Felon-musk-donations-to-charity&colorMode=system<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign quotes Harry Bailey\u2019s famous line declaring his brother George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart, \u201cthe richest man in town\u201d in \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life,\u201d after George\u2019s neighbors donate money to save him from financial ruin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re obviously poking a little fun here but the point is to show how extreme the concentration of wealth has become,\u201d said Alex Cobham, chief executive at TJN. \u201cDepending on where you are in the world, if you earn the average wage, you\u2019d need to work anywhere from 20 times to a thousand times longer than humans have existed <\/em>to earn as much wealth as Elon Musk has collected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petition notes that TJN and the world\u2019s children \u201cwould also settle for a 2% wealth tax on the superrich,\u201d which would allow countries around the world to raise $2 trillion per year if it was applied to the richest 0.5% of people on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s enough public money to meet most countries\u2019 climate finance needs, and leave billions to spare for local public services,\u201d the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group pointed to a recent G20<\/a> report<\/a> declaring a global \u201cinequality<\/a> emergency\u201d and last week\u2019s World Inequality Report, which found that fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires\u2014just 0.001% of the world\u2019s population\u2014own three times more wealth than the entire bottom 50% of humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithin almost every region, the top 1% alone hold more wealth than the bottom 90% combined,\u201d noted TJN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The petition emphasizes<\/a> the difference between collected wealth\u2014the kind enjoyed by Musk and other superrich people\u2014and earned wealth. The vast majority of people earn money for what they do, notes TJN. Musk and other billionaires<\/a> \u201cget paid for what [they] own, so dividends for owning stocks and rent money for owning real estate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billionaires including Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>, and Oracle executive Larry Ellison famously take salaries of just $1, but the money that\u2019s made them part of the world\u2019s superrich is their collected wealth, emphasized TJN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEarned wealth cannot create billionaires,\u201d said TJN. \u201cOnly collected wealth grows fast enough to do so. It\u2019s impossible to earn <\/em>a billion dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ProPublica<\/em> report<\/a> in 2021 detailed how billionaires like Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos<\/a> paid a collective \u201ctrue tax rate\u201d of just 3.4% while the median American household made $70,000 and paid a tax rate of 14%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis special tax treatment has helped the superrich quadruple their wealth since the 1980s to extreme levels,\u201d said TJN. \u201cStudies directly link this rise in extreme wealth to lower economic productivity, to more households going into debt and to people living shorter lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk in the past has pledged to use his extreme wealth to help people around the world\u2014only to renege on his promises. In 2022, he challenged<\/a> then-World Food Program chief David Beasley to prove, as Beasley had stated, that a small fraction of Musk\u2019s wealth could help address world hunger. He pledged to donate $6 billion by selling his Tesla<\/a> stock if the WFP could prove the contribution would \u201csolve world hunger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WFP responded with a report detailing how $6 billion could feed 42 million at-risk people and prevent them from going hungry for a year. But Musk didn\u2019t follow through with his pledge, instead donating $5.7 billion of his Tesla shares to his own foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, Musk spearheaded a push to slash government spending on foreign aid, with the US Agency for International Development a key target. The cuts have already proven deadly<\/a> for children in impoverished nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cobham on Monday pointed to research showing that the skyrocketing wealth of the richest 1% of Americans over the past 40 years has not led \u201cto more investments, and instead resulted in dissaving among non-rich households.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe now have plenty of evidence showing that extreme wealth shrinks economies, makes people poorer, and threatens\u00a0democracy<\/a>,\u201d said Cobham. \u201cThe best way to protect people, economies, and planet from the harms of extreme wealth is to end the special tax treatment that collected wealth gets over earned wealth. We must tax extreme wealth more effectively to protect the earner way of life we all rely on. Whether you\u2019re a wealth collector or a wealth earner, we all have an equal responsibility to pitch in our fair share.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A graphic shows billionaire Elon Musk superimposed into an image from the film \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life.\u201d \u00a0(Image by Tax Justice Network) … by giving nearly half of his $500 billion fortune to the children of the world. Julia Conley Dec 15, 2025 (CommonDreams.org) \u201cLet\u2019s make the world\u2019s richest man… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45642"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45643,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45642\/revisions\/45643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}