Yang spoke in Des Moines ahead of the Iowa caucuses next month.
Richard Nieva/CNETAndrew Yang, the tech entrepreneur running for president as a Democrat, has repeatedly talked up his plan to give every American $1,000 a month if he's elected. But does that really mean everyone?
Yes, everyone, Yang said Monday. Asked if that even means Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, Yang said it does.
"My friend Elon, who endorsed me, gets $1,000 a month," Yang said. "But Elon ends up paying more into the system, which he's totally cool with."
Yang was speaking at the Brown and Black Democratic Presidential Forum, a gathering in Des Moines, Iowa, primarily focused on issues faced by people of color. The slated speakers -- which included frontrunners former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- came together on a frigid day in the run-up to the Feb 3 Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3. The event, hosted by Vice News, was aptly held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
"We're in the midst of this economic transformation," Yang said. "And you know who suffers most when there's a tidal wave, it's black and brown people."
During a conference with reporters, he emphasized that the pool for his proposed fund would raise "hundreds of millions of dollars from the Jeff Bezoses of the world." He added, "If we try and send Jeff Bezos a $1,000 to remind him he's an America, I don't think that's a bad thing."
The event was one of the last joint gatherings for the candidates before the all-important Iowa caucuses. The contest is the first major milestone of the 2020 primary season, and the winner in Iowa comes away with great momentum as the rest of their states ready their primaries.
Technology has been a major theme in the candidates' campaign messaging. But while the impact of Silicon Valley tech giants has become a common talking point for the candidates when addressing national audiences, those issues have rarely come up when they stump in the heartland, Iowa residents say. The one exception has been Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur who has repeatedly raised the issue of job automation spurred by advancements in technology.
Still, candidates have widely taken aim at big tech. Last week, Biden raised eyebrows in the tech world when he proposed a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The landmark legal protection doesn't hold tech platforms liable for user-generated content. Biden told The New York Times it "immediately should be revoked," for every service and called out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by name. "It should be revoked because [Facebook] is not merely an internet company," Biden told the paper. "It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false."
Warren has made the most noise about tech companies. She's made it a key campaign promise to break up the big tech companies and bring antitrust reform to the historically seldom-regulated industry. Warren has proposed undoing key mergers that allowed the tech giants to sprawl and dominate their markets, such as Facebook's 2012 buyout of Instagram and Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube.
Sanders has also been ringing the alarm on Big Tech antitrust. He's denounced Facebook's "incredible power" over the country's economy and political life, calling the social network's grasp "very dangerous." Sanders has also said Amazon is "moving very rapidly to be a monopoly."
This is a developing story...
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