Musk Challenges Biden to Write Own Tweets

Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Saturday challenged Joe Biden’s communications team to give the president the password to his Twitter account, implying that the 80-year-old doesn’t come up with his own tweets.

“It’s about time the super-wealthy start paying their fair share,” Biden tweeted from his personal account late Saturday.

Musk, who purchased Twitter last October, responded about two hours later with his challenge to White House staffers.

“Please give him the password, so he can do his own tweets,” Musk wrote. “Please, I’m begging you!”

Musk’s challenge triggered a range of responses, from memes speculating what Biden would tweet to people lauding Musk for throwing down the gauntlet.

“He can barely place his right foot in front of his left one @elonmusk,” Andrew Vee tweeted. “what are you talking about? :))”

“Genuinely from a concerned British neighbor,” Del wrote. “What on earth were Americans thinking when they elected him?”

“Glad someone else is calling out that Biden clearly isn’t running this account,” Angie G said.

After his joke about Biden possibly not writing his own tweets, Musk struck a more serious note.

“In all seriousness, I agree that we should make elaborate tax-avoidance schemes illegal, but acting upon that would upset a lot of donors, so we will see words, but no action,” Musk wrote. “Those who will actually be forced to carry the burden of excess government spending are lower to middle income wage earners, as they cannot escape payroll tax.”

This isn’t the first time the president has called out the ultra-rich for not paying “their fair share.”

On March 18, Biden tweeted that the average billionaire pays 3% in income tax and said, “No billionaire should be paying a lower tax than somebody working as a schoolteacher or a firefighter.” The tweet was flagged as lacking context by Twitter users and a note was added for additional perspective.

“The 25 highest-earning billionaires pay an average tax rate of 16%,” the addendum said. “Meanwhile, among households earning from $50,000 to $100,000 a year — the category that many teachers and firefighters would fall into — the vast majority paid lower effective tax rates of between 0% and 15%.”

Responding to Biden’s March tweet, Musk said, “I paid 53% taxes on my Tesla stock options (40% Federal & 13% state), so I must be lifting the average!”

“I also paid more income tax than anyone ever in the history of Earth for 2021 and will do that again in 2022,” he said. “@CommunityNotes, is the 3% number cited above accurate?”

In a tweet from December 2021, Musk told “those wondering” that he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes for that year.