123: How Trump, Bezos & Musk Legally Pay $0 in Taxes
Every year, headlines spark outrage when names like Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, and George Soros appear alongside one shocking number: $0 in federal income taxes.
Most people assume this must be illegal, or at the very least, reserved for those with tens of billions of dollars. But here’s the truth: it’s 100% legal, and the real tragedy isn’t that billionaires pay too little—it’s that most high earners are paying way too much.
After three IPOs and more than a decade studying wealth management, I’ve discovered that the strategies billionaires use aren’t out of reach. In fact, anyone with $1–30 million in net worth can start applying these techniques today to cut their tax bills by six figures every single year.
In this post, I break down the four core strategies billionaires use to protect and grow their wealth:
- The Buy, Borrow, Die Method – How Bezos avoids selling stock, sidesteps capital gains, and borrows at low rates while compounding his wealth.
- Strategic Tax-Loss Harvesting – How Elon Musk offset millions in gains by strategically realizing losses, and how you can use the same approach with concentrated stock positions.
- Real Estate Depreciation – Trump’s favorite tool, using paper losses from real estate to wipe out taxable income—even while properties grow in value.
- Debt Structuring & Interest Deductions – How Bloomberg and Soros borrow to invest, deduct interest, and unlock preferential tax treatment on returns.
Here’s the surprising part: you don’t need billions to use these strategies. Whether you have a $3M stock portfolio, a few rental properties, or a concentrated equity position from your tech career, these same principles apply.
I’ll also share a real-world example from a tech executive client who was paying $400K annually in taxes before implementing these strategies. By restructuring his investments and tax planning, he cut his bill by $175K in the first year alone—and those savings compound year after year.
The bottom line is this: these tax strategies are not loopholes. They’re intentional incentives built into the tax code to encourage investment, growth, and entrepreneurship. The only question is whether you’ll take advantage of them—or continue overpaying out of habit and misinformation.
If you want to learn how to systematically implement these methods and manage your wealth like a business, I’ve created the WealthOps framework—a step-by-step system to build your own micro family office.
