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He benefited way more though. He's using way more road capacity, he's drawing on the skills of people who've come through publicly funded education way more, he's causing way more waste to have be cleaned up by others, etc etc. How to calculate this I don't know but it seems like a reasonable part of an argument for progressive taxation based on just deserts.
I personally wouldn't make the argument this way, nor would envy be a part of my framing. I'd just say progressive taxation or a wealth tax is good when it maximises current and future wellbeing and leave it at that.
If the argument is “he used more and therefore he should pay more for his use,” then that leads not to progressive tax but to benefits based tax. Take road capacity. Charge tolls for road usage. That’s almost certainly less than Elon’s taxes.
Re public education, the whole concept is to build skills. People have gotten compensated for those skills. Those laborers pay taxes (as does Elon). Why would you think Elon has taken out more from the system of tax dollars directed to higher education as opposed to given more back? Indeed, isn’t it the opposite? The person who uses that education and becomes a Redditor owes society a lot of money. Someone who richly employs a bunch of college graduates doesn’t owe society anything.
Re waste — we can do sinking funds.
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As best as I can tell, we already have systems in place to tax people for their use of road capacity (gas taxes, tolls), skills of people who've come through publicly funded education (salary, and income tax thereof), waste cleanup (local taxes, as well as fees paid to private cleanup companies), etc. If these taxes are improperly set and there are negative externalities that he's imposing, those ought to be fixed to be properly set. Or if he's evading these taxes, then he ought to be sued to pay his fair share and also punished accordingly. Same goes for anyone, rich or poor. I don't know that these are the case for him.
This is why I believe that the sorts of wealth tax that I'm talking about must be supported by a basis of envy. Just deserts based on treating him like any other individual who participates in society isn't enough to get us there.
Like I say, I wouldn't base my own argument for a wealth tax on just deserts. I don't think you can do a good accounting of the benefits and externalities and opportunity costs of the different parts of government, over the course of decades, such that we can say: gas taxes and tolls cover roads, income tax covers education, etc. It's all interconnected, historical and hard to put numbers on. Tax levels are set by politics and pragmatism, not an accounting of fairness. (To be clear I think this cuts both ways, I don't know if we can really math that Elon Musk gets exactly what he deserves, or if he gets too much either.)
Are these really the only options? What about wealth taxes as a good way to increase the wellbeing and opportunities of more people? Taking money from those who can easily afford it and using it to improve the lot of others in order to maximise utils or hedons or human flourishing, or whatever? It's not envy if someone actually believes wealth taxes are better for the wider populace, and it's uncharitable to believe all wealth tax supporters are privately just in it for the satisfaction of seeing the rich taken down a peg.
I'm skeptical that it's possible to credibly make such an argument, at least for wealth taxes of the level we're talking about. Perhaps it's possible to correctly make such an argument, but given empirical reality, it's hard to see how someone would have the credibility to judge it as correct. It's not a matter of private beliefs, it's a matter of motivated reasoning.
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