How is it possible to be worth a trillion?

[aurpod1980]

Is it just utter madness that one man can be worth a trillion dollars ? $1000 billion Wtaf

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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!

In the same way as I treasure my anonymity in being a nobody - the fact that there isn't anybody outside of my small circle of friends and family who could care less where I go, what I say, do, wear or buy - I value the fact that I will never suffer the same problem that most billionaires (let alone trillionaires) do: the anxiety about how not to lose it and the frightened belief that, however much there is, I've never got enough.

Good for him. And how do any of us know whether he gives very generously to charities? We don’t. So who are we to judge?

And do what with it? Give it to the third world country’s leaders to stuff in their back pockets? Give it to the feckless?

I had enough dosh to get me through today, and I have enough for tomorrow. I am not really bothered.

Because we all agree he is.

Money, especially now is made up by humans. If we stopped pretending it would stop existing.

It is pretty interesting.

He is socially engineering the UK population into an uprising against the government by making random three word comments on Twitter

Just keep licking his boots.

He's a vile wanker who is pushing white supremacy on Twitter.

He's a pathetic joke of a man. A man with almost unlimited riches on a world blighted by poverty. Poverty he could alleviate without affecting his own lifestyle at all.

He's a waste of skin and dna

The usual MN jealousy when someone does well. As a PP pointed out he was rich and a lot of people would just retire and have fun but he chooses to work most days and have innovative ideas and he employs lots of people too. He might donate to charity but not overtly. He has 14 children to pass his wealth on to.

Like what evidence would you like to see? Maybe he chooses not to be crass or virtue signal, and donates money privately. He doesn’t have to make it public. It’s no-one else’s business. He’s made the money himself. Doesn’t owe anyone a commentary of what he does with it.

It’s a fair point.

But when you see him scuttling round the oval office and that he wants to implant everyone’s brains with chips I rather quickly return to ‘ obscene’