“Seems High,” Elon Musk comments over Dems poised of making IRS larger than pentagon

On Monday, The world’s richest man, Elon Musk takes on Twitter to reply to Democrats’ plan for making IRS larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.

In response, Musk tweeted, “Seems high.”

Under the Inflation Reduction Act negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), the agency would receive $80 billion in funding to hire as many as 87,000 additional employees.

According to federal data, the rise would be more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers.

The additional IRS funding is essential to the Democrats’ reconciliation package. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found the hiring of new IRS agents would lead to more than $200 billion in additional revenue for the federal government over the next decade.

The Pentagon houses roughly 27,000 employees, according to the Defense Department, while a human resources fact sheet says the State Department employs just over 77,243 staff.

The FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, according to the agency’s website, and Customs and Border Protection says it employs 19,536 Border Patrol agents.

Earlier in June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that he voted for a QAnon-affiliated Republican for a U.S. House seat in Texas and that he’s leaning toward supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024, MSNBC reports.

While Musk claims to have centrist inclinations and has held political views that are all over the place, he seems to be drifting toward hard-right Trumpian territory.