This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Last June, drawing on the largest trove of confidential American tax data that’s ever been obtained, ProPublica launched a series of stories documenting the key ways the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, strategies that are largely unavailable to most taxpayers. To mark the first anniversary of the launch, we decided to assemble a quick summary of the techniques — all of which can generate tax savings on a massive scale — revealed…
Wealth
Musk’s $43B Offer to Buy Twitter Is Nearly Twice His Entire Pre-COVID Net Worth
As nearly a million Americans died of COVID during the pandemic, Elon Musk’s wealth skyrocketed — opening the door for him to be able to make offers like buying Twitter for $43 billion, as he did on Thursday. As Americans for Tax Fairness documented on Thursday, Musk’s wealth has shot up by a whopping 1,080 percent during the pandemic. On March 18, 2020, Musk was worth an already towering $24.6 billion; now, he’s worth $290 billion. In other words, he has gained over $265 billion in two years, the vast majority of which he accumulated tax-free. This is an absurd…