How Much Jeff Bezos Would Have To Spend Per Day To Go Broke In A Year
In November 2019, Recode contributor Jason Del Ray reported that months earlier, Amazon honcho and bald robber baron Jeff Bezos placed a call to his billionaire buddy Michael Bloomberg to ask a special question. As confirmed by Bloomberg's spokesperson, Bezos asked the former New York City mayor if he would run for president. Now this might seem like a curious request in a Democratic contest that already had about 8,000 presidential hopefuls, most of them hopeless. Why add Bloomberg to the unwieldy pile? Did Bezos just want to watch the world burn or the debate stage collapse under the weight of way too many people?
Maybe, just maybe being a filthy rich billionaire who wants to avoid paying higher taxes has something to do with it. Other billionaires who've expressed support for a President Bloomberg, such as Leon "I cry because I care about my money" Cooperman, have done so amid fears that a more progressive Democrat like Elizabeth Warren might win the Oval Office and impose a wealth tax.
In fact, when Bezos called Bloomberg, Amazon had recently scuttled plans to set up a headquarters in New York after progressive politicians like congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ripped the arrangement over the $3 billion in tax incentives Amazon was set to receive. As the Bezos-owned Washington Post points out, in 2018, Amazon paid $0 in taxes despite raking in $11.2 billion in profits. Between 2009 and 2018, Amazon paid a whopping 3 percent tax rate on its many, many billions of dollars in profits. Obviously, Amazon won't go broke making billions and paying virtually nothing. But how much would you have to tax Bezos each day to take all his money away in a year?
He would have to burn money like trees in the Amazon
On November 14, 2019, the Washington Post reported that based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jeff Bezos had a net worth of roughly $109 billion, making him about $2 billion richer than Bill Gates. If you wanted to tax all that cash into oblivion over the course of a year, Bezos would have to pay about $298,630,137 every day, give or take a few cents. Though, if Bezos gets his way, he probably won't have to give any cents.