The world’s richest man and government official Elon Musk has accused federal workers of unfairly getting rich off the taxpayers, citing, without evidence, “quite a few” with a net worth of tens of millions of dollars.
Upgraded to $38bn according to The Washington Post on 28 February, 2025.
“We find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk said.
“I think the reality is they’re getting wealthy at taxpayer expense,” he added.
The Fortune magazine said "Neither Musk nor President Trump offered any evidence of corruption or improper enrichment that might explain federal employees allegedly getting rich off their government roles, and DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) did not respond to Fortune’s request for examples.
According to a report from the Congressional Budget Office in 2024, the top 10% of wealthy Americans now control 60% of the nation’s wealth.
The poorer half holds only 6%.
Fortune's Chloe Berger "We are essentially in a new Gilded Age': As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits. Taking a modern-century spin on “Let them eat cake,” shareholders are having the whole cake, and eating it too." 31 Oct 2024
What is causing growing wealth and income inequality?
"Over the past 30 years the U.S.'s top 1% got richer, and now hold nearly a third of the nation's wealth."
From 1989 to 2019, wealth became increasingly concentrated in the top 1% and top 10% due in large part to corporate stock ownership concentration in those segments of the population; the bottom 50% own little if any corporate stock.
Trump at his inauguration made sure that the American Royalty would get prominent seats.
He coined the phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" in his 1765 book Confessions.
The phrase is often mistranslated as "Let them eat cake."
Brioche was a rich cake.
Tech jobs declining
TechCrunch has reported that in the U.S.: The tech layoff wave continued through 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, 2024 saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 542 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi.