Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., drew intense criticism on Monday after she claimed on X that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos should pay more in taxes in response to him sponsoring the Met Gala, with conservatives questioning the senator’s record and accusing her of misrepresenting facts.

“The answer to everything, up to and apparently including bankrupting an airline at the cost of something like 15,000 jobs and the entire concept of budget airfare, is ‘Jeff Bezos has a lot of money though,’” venture capitalist and media founder Mike Solana wrote in response to Warren’s post.

Solana was referring to the recent demise of Spirit Airlines. Conservative commentators claim Spirit could have been saved if Warren hadn’t pushed to block JetBlue’s acquisition of the budget carrier on anti-trust grounds in 2024. 

“If Jeff Bezos can drop $10 million to sponsor the Met Gala, he can afford to pay his fair share in taxes,” Warren said on Monday, sparking the glut of pushback from social media users. 

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Following news that Bezos had cut an eight-figure check to fund the Met Gala, liberals in the entertainment industry such as Mark Ruffalo and Taraji P. Henson joined Warren in criticizing Amazon and Bezos for their allegedly unethical business practices. Protesters appeared outside the gala on Monday holding signs criticizing Bezos. One demonstrator was detained for trying to break into the event.

Warren’s message backfired online, as commenters pointed to the demise of Spirit Airlines and took issue with her tax policies across the years. 

“Jeff Bezos employs over 1.5 million people at Amazon,” X user Gina Milan wrote. “You’re responsible for 17,000 workers losing their jobs and for blocking the merger that ultimately killed Spirit Airlines.”

Spirit put downward pressure on prices at other airlines and its folding could lead to an increase in overall travel prices, industry analysts told USA Today. Estimated job losses stemming from Spirit’s shuttering include approximately 15,000 direct employees and an additional 2,000 indirect employees.

“This myth just won’t die,” Reason Magazine reporter Billy Binion posted, responding to Warren’s assertion that Bezos isn’t paying enough in taxes. “In 2024 alone, it’s estimated Jeff Bezos paid almost $3 billion in taxes. Painting rich people as tax avoiders plays great on social media, but it’s not reality. The U.S. has the most progressive tax system in the developed world.”

Forbes estimates that Bezos paid $2.7 billion in taxes in 2024 after he sold $13.6 billion worth of Amazon stock. He reduced his tax burden that year by donating $2.5 billion in Amazon shares to charity over the three prior years. Bezos paid nearly $1 billion in taxes between 2014 and 2018, according to a ProPublica analysis of tax documents. 

To minimize tax burdens, billionaires like Bezos often take out loans secured against their massive stock holdings to acquire spending money, according to securities filings reviewed by ProPublica. Since the IRS doesn’t consider loans income, this setup gives the wealthy access to cash without having to pay income taxes.

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Some on social media pushed Warren for specifics on how she plans to make Bezos pay his “fair share.” 

“What’s his fair share?” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Warren. “What tax rate?”

Warren has proposed a wealth tax, charging households with net worths above $1 billion an annual tax worth 6% of their total wealth. Under Warren’s proposal, households with net worths between $50 million and $1 billion would be subject to a similar 2% tax.

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Much of the growth in wealth experienced by Bezos and other billionaires comes through the unrealized gains of their assets, which Warren’s tax would target.

Writer Mike Coté pointed out that Bezos is “so rich that he can simply leave the jurisdiction or get citizenship elsewhere” if Warren’s tax plans were signed into law.

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“Liz Warren does not want progressive taxation,” he continued. “She wants confiscatory taxation. It’s fundamentally un-American. And it doesn’t work.”

Warren’s office did not respond to a request for comment sent by Fox News Digital Tuesday morning.

WASHINGTON — The United States has launched a new military operation to ensure commercial shipping vessels can safely pass through the Strait of Hormuz, deploying scores of warships, fighter jets and drones to counter Iranian efforts that have threatened the narrow waterway that carries a fifth of the world’s oil.

At a news conference Tuesday at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the new initiative — dubbed “Project Freedom” — is a temporary and defensive operation meant to resume the flow of traffic through the international waterway as hostilities have continued in the region.

“We are not looking for a fight, but Iran cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway,” Hegseth said, while calling Iran’s tactics “international extortion.”

The operation comes nearly a month after the United States reached a fragile ceasefire deal with Iran, a truce that Hegseth said remains in effect even though Tehran has continued to attack U.S. forces and commercial vessels.

“The ceasefire is not over,” Hegseth said.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that since the ceasefire took effect, Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times, seized two container ships and attacked U.S. forces more than 10 times. All of these instances, he said, are “below the threshold of restarting major combat operations at this point.”

Those attacks have left more than 1,550 vessels trapped in the Arabian Gulf, unable to transit, disrupting global trade and pushing energy markets toward crisis, with fuel prices climbing and shipping costs surging.

The new U.S. mission was cast as separate from the broader military campaign over Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As negotiations to denuclearize Iran continue, Caine said commercial vessels wanting to cross the strait will now “see, hear and frankly feel the U.S. combat power around them, on the sea, in the skies and on the radio.”

Two U.S. commercial vessels, escorted by Navy destroyers, have already moved through the Strait, Hegseth said.

“We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact,” Hegseth said. “They said they control the strait, they do not.”

Hegseth called the operation a “direct gift from the United States to the world,” aimed at resuming traffic through one of the world’s most vital waterways.

“To what remains of Iran’s forces: if you attack American troops or innocent commercial shipping, you will face overwhelming and devastating American firepower,” Hegseth said. “The president has been very clear about this.”

On Tuesday evening local time, the UAE’s defense ministry said in a statement on X that the country’s defensive systems “are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats and that “sounds heard across the across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.”

Tuesday’s barrage marks the second consecutive day of attacks targeting the UAE since the U.S.-Iran ceasefire took hold on April 8. On Monday, the UAE said it engaged a total of 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones launched from Iran.

For its part, Iran said it had no “pre-planned program” to attack the UAE’s oil facilities, but that attacks were prompted by the United States’ plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to an unnamed military official quoted by Iranian State TV.

“What happened was the product of the U.S. military’s adventurism to create a passage for ships to illegally pass through” the Strait, the official said, adding the U.S. military “must be held accountable for it.”

Ceballos reported from Washington, Bulos from Beirut.