Tesla, the electric car company led by former Trump administration special government employee Elon Musk, released its annual financial report Thursday, showing that it doubled its yearly income in 2025 over the previous year and brought in $5.7 billion.
The company, whose CEO spent several months rooting out what he claimed was fraud and waste across the federal government, reported “precisely zero current federal income tax” on the billions it made, according to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).
The group explained that Tesla used accelerated depreciation, reducing the value of its capital assets, while also slashing its tax bill with tax breaks for its executive stock options
This is a non-story (except for the continuing fact that the way stock options are taxed is bullshit, and that Elmo’s tax breaks should be extra scrutinized due to his suspiciously close relationship with the administration).
Tesla not paying taxes is a good thing, because it means they’re losing buckets of money from people not buying their trash cars.
Tesla’s revenue being 4 billion or 10 trillion doesn’t matter if their expenses exceed that income - you don’t pay taxes on your business either if your business expenses exceed your revenue, and you can carry forward your own losses to future tax years as well.
And accelerated depreciation is perfectly consistent with GAAP as long as you’re consistent with your reporting - it just means you get more of a tax benefit on depreciation in the short-term and lose out on that benefit in the long-term.
Hate to break it to you but the reason Tesla is paying $0 isn’t its expenses being higher than its revenue.
I mean… I take issue with the tax code being that personally. Idgaf if your company loses money or not- you pay taxes. It’s not the problem of society to make sure your company can write off a bad year. If you fail, you fail. American taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for failing businesses or creative businesses.
Nobody understands the difference between revenue and profit, and the “Elon bad” crowd doesnt want to hear it anyway.
This is a simple circle jerk.
You know if you post this on twitter you can tag musk on it directly.