How is it possible to be worth a trillion?

But him not owning a house isn't weird in the slightest. The reason that most of us ordinary folk want to own a house is for the security of ourselves and our families - a tiny part of the world that we own and (once it's paid off), nobody can take from us.

If you have as much money as he does, you simply don't have any need for that kind of security in the first place.

It's only a technicality anyway, as he could easily buy thousands of houses at any point if he wanted to. Whilst the rest of us have to slog hard for decades and still cut our cloth as to what we can afford to pay back, he can just go on any country's version of Rightmove, see all the properties he wants and furrow his brow looking for the button to 'add to basket' and then go through to the checkout - just the same way as we do when buying a paperback on Amazon!

Who should have the money then? People who can't be arsed to get up before midday?

I knew it wouldn't take long before people started defending him and saying what a great innovator and business man he is.

No one should have that much money, it's pure greed and anyone with a conscience wouldn't want it.

But, to paraphrase Joseph Heller, I have something Musk will never have. I have enough.

I don't really care either way. There is a lot of dead wood in, this country. At least he is creating stuff.

I don't really care if someone else has a trillion and I don't, as I am happy with my life and wouldn't want to change it, but there is a certain injustice and unfairness about one man having so much money when so many millions of people across the world are so poor. Yes, he may have 'earned' it to a degree, but he had a bloody good start in life, and a pretty swift leg up! Same with Trump, and many other very rich and successful people. Some people start from nothing, but many already have influence, connections, and wealth to start with.

Just because you cannot see any evidence that Musk uses his fortune to the benefit of humanity or the planet doesn't mean it's not happening, it's just shows that you are uninformed:

Perhaps the difference is that Musk doesn't seek publicity for his charitable donations/ foundations.

https://www.xprize.org/news/100m-carbon-removal-competition-validates-xprize-model-as-catalyst-for-climate-solutions-xprize-impact-report

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musk_Foundation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60561162?app-referrer=deep-link

When I read that on the news earlier I just felt so repulsed.

I’d be perfectly happy to be worth a trillion pounds.

Bill Gates is an innovator and an entrepreneur who made many, many billions. He chose to give back through his foundation.

So have many others.

I cannot see any evidence or plans to use his fortune to the benefit of humanity and our planet.

So let's assume that he's an investor not an investor. Tesla or SpaceX would never have happened without his investments.

Honestly it seems like the left would happily have no technology progres, no economic growth and live in the Middle Ages it it prevented successful investors, investors or businesses getting rich on taking investment risks.

Err... PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink (now part of SpaceX), a few others.

None of these companies and their innovations would have happened without him. And of course it would seem that he is a good builder of teams too as there is far too much going on now for a single person to run.

Not only is such a record of repeated business building unprecedented, what is remarkable is that all the products are truly innovative.

As I say you don't have to like him but belittling his achievements is a bit crass.

What achievements? He's an investor not an inventor. He's not an idiot and has invested his money wisely. Much easier to do when your born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

So you prefer that people don't set up new businesses and develop new products and new technologies?

Or you're happy if they do but you don't like them getting rewarded if they succeed? Which then raises the question of why would anyone bother setting up such a new business/ technology?

He OWNS a trillion.

But worth is measured differently. I doubt very much he’s WORTH a trillion

Also subscribes to the beliefs of Accellerationism (they want to burn the world), and technofascism runs in the family (grandfather thrown out of Canada I think, for his beliefs)

Totally disagree. There’s never an argument for anyone owning all that.

Is it?

Back in 1999 at the height of the sitcom bubble Elon Musk made $22 million by selling the he and his brother company founded in 1995.

Now most people would probably bank the $22 million and not work again. But he risked it to set up a new company X.com in 1999 which then merged with PayPal and then sold to eBay in 2002.

Then in 2002 he founded SpaceX the sale of which today has made him a trillionaire.

So yes he could have just retired with his original $22 million but what makes him different to the rest of us is that it's not just about the money it's about new businesses, developing new products and pushing the frontiers of technology.

On that basis he should be applauded for becoming the first trillionaire.

He’s really not. He employs some people who are. Most of his wilder ideas are totally unproven. Teslas are shit.

It's disgusting. Where's robin hood when you need him.
It has been far too easy for him to make money and far to easy for 80% of rest of the world to be poorer. Each one of his dollars is paid for by increasing prices for everyone else in one way or another. He's just collecting numbers now.

TBF it's mostly calculated as his percentage ownership of his various companies based on the value others apply to those shares. So it's not all in $ bills. But he's rich yes.

But isn't he also the most remarkable person of his generation? Starlink and SpaceX are totally innovative.

If you ever get frustrated at how slow and inefficient the public sector is think about how better and quicker Musk would do it.

Yes he's earned money but he is also a phenomenal innovator and facilitator of tech for the planet.

The thing that baffles me about this is you could keep a billion dollars, and then have enough money to give the poorest billion people $999 each. Which could get them out of debt and give them money they have never had which they could invest in running a small business or making sure their home was waterproof or whatever.

And the billion you'd have left is still more than I could possibly work out how to spend. I hone as fly get stuck, thinking it through, with what I would even do with £10M, I expect I would spend £50M if I really really tried.

And that's just ONE person. If all the billionaires (3,250 ish people) gave aware 90% of their wealth (so still all having at least a hundred million each) then that would redistribute €18 trillion. That's enough for €4500 dollars for everyone in the poorest 50% of the earth's population which would add about 50% to their average wealth. I know you couldn't do it exactly like that, but it's honestly mental to me that more people don't give away the majority of their wealth, when they have enough for themselves and their family hundreds of times over.

It would appear that he is now richer than the poorest 46% of the world population, or 3.8 billion people, combined.