637
TIL that Elon Musk controls 90 companies. When he buys land, when he orders food, or when he gives money to politicians, he uses shell companies
(www.nytimes.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2026
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I can think of a dozen ways around that, and I'm sure a competent lawyer could find a million more.
What might work better, and something that Americans can wrap their head around, is tax implications around ownership base for publicly owned companies, and every company over $1 million in non-asset value or 50 employees becomes publicly owned. This would only be around 6-7% of companies in the United States - 96% of American companies are smaller than 50 people.
A good example is the Green Bay Packers, which is a fan-owned non-profit, and fans are the shareholders. Americans can comprehend fractional ownership like that. So you start with the lowest tax implications for modest profits per year as long as no individual holds more than 2% of stocks, and tax incentives to operate as a non-profit. So two potentially different tracks for a company to operate which is simply about employing people and doing a job well, with worker ownership fundamental to the company itself.
Then, once you get into Succession-style stock grabbing BS, taxes quickly skyrocket as the company grows. Taxes go up for the whole company if an individual owns more than 2%, 5%, 10%, etc. Once an individual is holding 51% of a company, the company gets taxed at a high rate proportionally to profits, (worker median salary-worker mean salary), and number of workers. So small and medium-sized companies don't get trashed and are incentivized to pay people better, and hire more people, before laying people off simply to make money. Then the incentives structure would grow proportionally for large companies where factors like CEO pay and CEO stock ownership or stick dividends are what trigger taxes.
I'm sure competent lawyers would also also find ways to loophole that structure, but the for-profit-only-at-all-costs business model is not sustainable or even all that beneficial anymore other than for TV drama.