You do know that they don’t actually have 1 billion in cash, right? So your proposal is just to take away ownership of companies from anyone successful.
That’s not an equality mechanism, that’s a way to drive successful companies into the ground by the government seizing and selling them off.
So seriously think about how a wealth tax would work and come back with a proposal that justifies why a company like SpaceX should be seized by the government.
This is a web forum so no room for nuance, but you're begging the question.
Who exactly is the government "seizing and selling off" Elon's shares to in your scenario?
And why does the answer to that question imply the company will be driven into the ground?
At $150bn market cap, you just need a maximum of 151 shareholders (I'm not going to bother to look up Elon's ownership percentage of SpaceX) worth of dilution to ensure no billionaires.
Again, these 151 individuals would remain grossly wealthy.
And certainly there are large companies today without a single shareholder holding $1 billion.
Again, it's really not hard to imagine a world where no single person owns more than $1 billion of collective capital and equity, and still operates in a capitalist fashion.
Edit: McDonald's (market cap $190bn) is 70% owned by large institutional investors, a meager 0.31% combined by executives in the company, and the rest is the general public with no dominant shareholder.
A wealth tax implies the government, either federal or state that implements it.
>And why does the answer to that question imply the company will be driven into the ground?
Because companies with long shot visions cannot be run by committee. There is far too much temptation to sell out early. Elon very specifically holds the majority of SpaceX to ensure the vision of going to Mars doesn’t get disrupted by the quest for profit.
>And certainly there are large companies today without a single shareholder holding $1 billion.
Certainly, and they are beholden to the quarterly report and the whims of board politics.
>owned by large institutional investors, a meager 0.31% combined by executives in the company, and the rest is the general public with no dominant shareholder.
And what has McDonald’s done that’s innovative in the last 20 years?
>Again, it's really not hard to imagine a world where no single person owns more than $1 billion of collective capital and equity, and still operates in a capitalist fashion.
Of course it’s not hard to imagine. It’s not any less of a dumb idea though. Forcing a weird ceiling on control of a business when the original goal was a wealth tax is pretty absurd. Is the goal to strip away ability to control the company or is it to just tap into the potential wealth those shares represent?
