Elon reconsiders free speech
Also, if you hate taxes and the IRS, be careful what you wish for!
Greetings from Paris! I’m here for this week’s VivaTech conference. I watched from afar this weekend as Elon Musk discovered the limits of free speech — and, sanely, took steps to save himself and Tesla. I also learned about a tax and tax-collection system even more hated than the one in the US!
Last week, I noted that the threat to Elon Musk and Tesla from the Musk-Trump flame war went beyond money and politics.
Specifically, I said that if Musk continued shooting his mouth off about his views of President Trump’s “big beautiful bill” and association with Jeffrey Epstein, Trump might sic the Justice Department and FBI on him. This, I noted, might force Musk to resign from Tesla and instead devote his energies and fortune to trying to keep himself out of jail.
(I’ll leave it to you to decide whether we Americans really want our Presidents to be able to punish critics like this. But there shouldn’t be much doubt about whether the current President can or would.)
Anyway, Musk appears to have — sanely — reconsidered the virtues of speaking so freely, because he has stopped tweeting about Trump and the bill and even deleted his more antagonistic tweets.
Tesla shareholders and Musk fans should breathe a sigh of relief.
Yes, there were some who thought a battle royale between the the richest man in the world and the the most powerful man in the world would be a close fight — with the potential for equally devastating damage on both sides.
But it would not have been close.
The most powerful man in the world would have won, hands down.
Because the most powerful man in the world has something the richest man in the world does not — namely, the power to investigate and prosecute Americans.
Over the weekend, the most powerful man in the world made clear that if the richest man in the world did not shut up — or donated money to his political opponents — there would be “consequences.”
Musk appears to have gotten the message and, in his own way, begun kissing President Trump’s ring. And even though Trump hasn’t yet publicly forgiven Musk, he has made clear who the alpha is.
At the same time, interestingly, Elon Musk has experienced a reality of “free speech” that most of us — save the President and some billionaires — experience every day.
Namely, the reality that — whether it is legal or not — speech often has consequences.
For example, most of us would get fired for saying or tweeting anything like what Trump and Musk often say and tweet.
And most of us also choose not to speak or tweet that way for other reasons. Namely, because it would be mean, rude, offensive, divisive, inconsiderate, hurtful, or threatening — and the world does not need more of that these days. What the world needs is more mutual respect and decency.
Will Elon’s new attitude toward free speech continue?
We shall see.
Tesla shareholders — and those who hope that Elon will refocus his astounding energy and talent on building amazing new things — should hope so.
Abolish the US tax system and IRS?
I discovered yesterday that the Picasso Museum in Paris is housed in something called the Hôtel Salé, which is a spectacular stone building that looks like a mini-Versailles.
Clueless American that I am, I assumed that the “Hôtel Salé” was once, well, a hotel, and that “Monsieur Salé” was worth honoring (or rich). But when I asked my Paris guide “Claude” about this, I learned that the word “hôtel” in this case refers a private mansion and that this particular private mansion was not owned by or named for a man but for….salt.
The “Hôtel Salé,” it turns out, is “the mansion of salt,” or, more accurately, the mansion built by the profits from salt.
And not actually salt but… “salt taxes.”
Well, of course I had to ask Claude about that, too.
And Claude gave me a lesson on forms of taxation and tax-collection that were apparently even more hated than the ones in the United States.
TLDR:
Back in monarchical France, before the French Revolution, the king had to fund his lifestyle and army somehow, so he did it by enacting consumption taxes on things like salt. And, lest people respond by consuming less or no salt, the king decreed that all citizens must buy salt — and at absurdly marked-up prices, to boot.
The king didn’t want to deal with the hassle of collecting the taxes, so he sold the rights to do this to his favored pals. These “tax farmers” paid the king a lump sum upfront and then collected the taxes themselves — pocketing the difference between what they paid and the collections. Tax farming was so profitable that it created great fortunes, including the one that built the “Hôtel Salé.”
The methods the tax farmers used to collect the salt tax and other such taxes, as you might imagine, were not always polite or popular.
The salt tax, meanwhile, was so hated that it contributed to the French Revolution.
And the tax farmers — and, presumably, their in-your-face mansions — were so loathed that, during the Revolution, many of them had their heads chopped off (as did the king).
After the Revolution, the salt tax was banned.
But then Napoleon — who saved France from the horrors of having a king by making himself emperor — needed a way to pay for his own army and lifestyle. So he reimplemented the salt tax.
Anyway…
In pre-Revolutionary France, there was a tax regime that was even more hated than the one in modern-day United States. And a tax-collection system that was even more hated than the IRS!
So, as we cheer for revolution, America, let’s be careful what we wish for.
The alternative might be worse!
Thank you for reading Regenerator! We’re the publication for people who want to build a better future. My inbox and mind are always open: hblodget@regenerator1.com.