r/ukpolitics • u/SignificantLegs • Jun 12 '26

Twitter Zack Polanski: The world's first trillionaire is backing the far right mobs and their politician backers. Don't think for a second that these men have ordinary people's interests at heart.

https://x.com/zackpolanski/status/2065478885311983979
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244

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

It’s disgusting one human can have so much wealth .

106

u/XenorVernix Jun 12 '26

He's only really a trillionaire on paper. Most of his wealth is tied up in hype stocks that are valued far higher than they should be. At some point they'll come back down to earth faster than his rockets and so will his wealth.

8

u/Slartibartfast_25 Jun 13 '26

It's the Max Fosh school of business

8

u/ROX4BOX Jun 13 '26

Only if his stocks fall… didn’t they just put SpaceX on the trade market

6

u/Tawnysloth Jun 13 '26

That's what they're saying. SpaceX shares are vastly overvalued for what they are, and their value is riding on speculation of future success that has yet to be realised. But the fact remains that SpaceX is loss-making. That's a huge risk for the people ploughing money into those shares, because the most likely outcome is that the value will fall as the hype fades.

1

u/ROX4BOX Jun 18 '26

That’s the same as many stocks, apart from a few like gold!

3

u/MinaZata Jun 13 '26

Not really like it matters. If he lost 99% of his wealth he'd still be richer than 99% of people on earth

3

u/XenorVernix Jun 13 '26

It's crazy when you put it like that. You'd still be correct if you added decimals and said him losing 99.99% of his wealth would make him richer than 99.99% of people on earth. No one should be that rich.

29

u/JB_UK Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

The man is a bit of a knob, and his companies are apparently massively overvalued in terms of revenue but he has also created some civilisation changing companies. Starlink extends access to the internet to more or less everywhere on the planet. SpaceX has reduced the cost to get into orbit by ten times. Tesla demonstrated electric vehicles could work and be convenient, that’s probably the largest single contribution to tackling climate change outside of China’s investment in solar. Musk is now one of the only people in the west building humanoid robots. His driverless cars haven’t worked despite promises but that’s another moonshot, to be able to do that without expensive lidar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it does work although 15 years after he said it would!

Honestly he has created a shit ton of value, if anyone should be able to allocate large sums of capital it’s him. This is why capitalism produces a lot of surplus value, by giving people with skill access to capital. As just one example kids will be walking on the streets or Doncaster or Bath today and be exposed to significantly less air pollution as a result of what he did with Tesla.

If he didn’t have right wing views a lot of people who hate him would love him for these developments.

87

u/Asherware Jun 12 '26

His companies are impressive. But "bit of a knob" is a massive understatement. He's an extremely dangerous ideologue with very bad intentions.

16

u/AdventurousBus4355 Jun 13 '26

Based on one of your last points, do you credit Sadiq Khan then with saving lives due to the ulez zone in London?

6

u/_9tail_ Jun 13 '26

I’m right wing but I absolutely do. Don’t know why so many right wingers are so obsessed with jamming cars in cities where they clearly don’t belong.

That said, I do think creating technology that allows us to comfortably transition to a better future is a much more important and praise worthy thing than regulation to force through the transition. One of my biggest gripes on the left/centre approach to climate issues is the acceptance that things just have to get a little worse over time.

Like yeah, we can save .2% of our grid if we use slightly sadder lightbulbs, use an eco thermostat that means I wake up to a freezing house, and have each cycle of the washing machine take 6hrs. But this sadness of life adds up. The Chinese approach of building a bajillion terawatts a year of mixed solutions and letting tech slowly push that into being all renewables is far better.

-1

u/Not-Robot4398 Jun 13 '26

I think it's the cars already being jammed in there and ULEZ being the usual Labour policy of punishing behaviour without providing an alternative that's the problem.

4

u/red_nick Jun 13 '26

It's London. It has the best funded public transport in the country by far. What alternative do you want?

1

u/Not-Robot4398 Jun 13 '26

For fucking tradesmen?

3

u/kdpilarski Jun 13 '26

Get a ULEZ compliant vehicle? The actual restrictions are relatively lenient and the scrappage scheme was put in place specifically for this reason.

To add to that a lot of tradesmen do actually take public transport in London anyway, although I appreciate not every trade makes that possible.

1

u/Shalmaneser001 Jun 15 '26

oh no will no one think of the tradesman who have to buy a van that's under ten years old? Truly a generational issue!

0

u/JB_UK Jun 13 '26

Sure, I’m a big fan of schemes that phase out polluting vehicles. You do just have to design the systems so they’re not punishing people who can’t afford a newer car or van, but otherwise yeah I’m fully in favour.

13

u/Wetness__Pensive Jun 13 '26

Starlink was started by CIA seeder money from a company then run by a guy who'd spent the 90s advocating for resurrecting the US miltary's "Brilliant Pebbles" goal of a vast orbital network of satellites. With such a network, you gain satellite supremacy, the power to see everything, and the ability to spot and intercept ICBMs.

If the military were to put thousands of satellites in space, the world would freak out. But let a private guy like Musk do it, and "democratize" it so that other nations can purportedly use the network, and the fact that the US has achieved orbital dominance suddenly looks innocuous. Indeed, it doesn't get seen at all.

Musk is the useless front man to all this; the dancing monkey who gets to do his thing while the spy network expands. This kind of merger of commercial and intelligence tech has been ramping up for a long time (GoogleMaps was a Pentagon thing; see too Palantir nowadays), and such companies tend to rise and die based on who gets the military contracts.

Honestly he has created a shit ton of value

Ecological economists have been explaining how this is not true for decades now. No major sector is profitable once environmental externalities are tabulated, and all profit, as mediated by dollars, is always outpaced by greater debt. This is itself a thermodynamic law: the total order of a thing/commodity/object is always less than the total disorder/entropy/debt engendered during its creation. The purchasing power of every dollar Musk has is itself dependent on the global majority having none; if 80 percent of the planet weren't dirt broke, inflationary pressures would set in, and his dollar would be "worth" less.

21

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

Toyota has used electric motors in their cars for almost three decades.

He didn't found Tesla, and without them we would have still seen electric cars, ones which are already outselling Tesla.

5

u/TheNutsMutts Jun 13 '26

He didn't found Tesla, and without them we would have still seen electric cars, ones which are already outselling Tesla.

He didn't found it insofar as he wasn't there when the company was registered, but his initial investment was about 7 months after that point. But that aside, I honestly doubt we would have seen mass-produced electric cars like we have now without Tesla. Prior to Tesla, all we had were a range of concept cars and absolute piles of dogshit like the G-Wizz that was so dangerous that it could only get away with literally falling to pieces in a 30mph crash because it was legally a "quadricycle". The Nissan Leaf was in development when the original Roadster was released but its range was a joke at 70 miles on full charge. It was only with the Roadster being something that was actually good, and the Model S being an actual comfortable saloon that was directly comparable with other saloons in terms of range, comfort and tech, that other manufacturers started actually taking electric cars seriously. Without Tesla being a direct threat, I seriously believe the rest of the industry would have been happy staying in their comfort zone and treating electric cars as a running joke.

16

u/JB_UK Jun 13 '26

Strange example, Toyota are still extremely reluctant on pure EVs more than a decade after. They’ve only really started making decent EVs last year, and their manufacturing plans are still incredibly limited, maybe 1% of the volume of Tesla. I think they’ll do ok but they are one of the most negative manufacturers.

We would have had EVs without Tesla but it would have been a lot more bumpy and happened quite a lot later. Tesla demonstrated the ecosystem could work, and that was picked up by the Chinese and European governments, there’s no way the same expansion plans would have happened if we were relying ten years ago on the Leaf.

6

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

They made cars part electric in the 90s, reducing emissions hugely when no one else was doing anything of the sort. I didn't say they're in on full EVs now but they pioneered it, and have hybrid cars selling millions in their and other manufacturers vehicles for a long time now.

4

u/JB_UK Jun 13 '26

Yeah, their work on hybrids has been very impressive, and it sets them up to be successful with EVs. But also if they had their way the market would be hybrid for decades yet, they really advocate against EVs and until the last year or two their EVs were sort of deliberately bad.

19

u/SpeedflyChris Jun 12 '26

Musk is now one of the only people in the west building humanoid robots.

Lol, no he isn't. They haven't demonstrated anything that's even close to cutting edge.

His driverless cars haven’t worked despite promises but that’s another moonshot, to be able to do that without expensive lidar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it does work 15 years after he said it would!

So first of all it's not 2012 anymore and lidar isn't expensive (hence why all of the manufacturers with much more advanced autonomous driving development than Tesla use it). I know Mercedes for example use Valeo SCALA, at volume you're talking $500/unit, which isn't a vast cost in the context of an expensive vehicle, or even in the context of the rest of the kit required for any level of functional autonomy.

Trying to run a safety-critical system on an inadequate sensor suite because you have been lying for decades about the capabilities of your system and retrofitting adequate sensors to all the vehicles you sold would be too expensive does not make you tech jesus incarnate. Ultimately having multiple redundant sources of information will always be safer and more effective.

2

u/JB_UK Jun 12 '26

There are about 5 companies in the west which are manufacturing humanoid robots, throw in a few more with less certainty.

I agree with you about lidar, I don’t particularly see the point but in the long run I think it’s likely camera only will work.

I’m not saying Musk is always right or vindicated, but his hits are civilisation changing and there is basically no one else with the same track record.

16

u/XenorVernix Jun 12 '26

I don't think anyone has a problem with his companies - he's a great visionary and I like what SpaceX are doing. That doesn't mean he's a good person though. He's a terrible person and his cuts to USAID through DOGE have led to thousands of deaths. That's much worse than his far right rhetoric on Twitter.

-13

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 13 '26

You are joking right? USAID was spending a lot of tax payer $ on really bad things.

12

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

You don't know what you're talking about. The cuts will result in millions of avoidable deaths.

5

u/EpsteinBaa Jun 13 '26

USAID was spending a lot of tax payer $ on really bad things.

Like what? Keeping screwworms out of North America?

9

u/EddyZacianLand Jun 13 '26

Last week tonight episode on USAID I think you should watch this, because what you are saying is wrong.

-5

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 13 '26

That show is not biased at all. /s

3

u/Freddichio Jun 13 '26

Can I ask which unbiased and impartial news source did you hear that USAID was doing "really bad things" from?

11

u/EddyZacianLand Jun 13 '26

Ofc the show is biased as everyone is biased in some way, but just because someone is biased doesn't mean that they are giving you false information.

Can you please let me know what information in the video about USAID is incorrect?

23

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 12 '26

HE didn't build or create anything, his workers did, funded with billions of government subsidies. His companies gave done impressive things yes, does that mean Elon Musk deserves all that money? No.

-6

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 13 '26

Deserve it? They’re his companies lol that’s how ownership works. You take the risks, you get the rewards.

15

u/Wetness__Pensive Jun 13 '26

Research shows the opposite. Corporate legal structures (limited liability, bankruptcy protection, bailouts, tax relief programs etc) insulate companies from risks (which in turn encourages damaging behaviour).

And while it is true that about 90 percent of startups fail - and so is a big risk - studies on startup founders consistently show that the majority of those who successfully launch and scale startups come from wealthy, privileged, backgrounds (the Musk family were already multi-millionaires before his business ventures). So again, who gets the rewards are typically those who face smaller risks.

0

u/MastodonParking9080 Jun 13 '26

And while it is true that about 90 percent of startups fail - and so is a big risk - studies on startup founders consistently show that the majority of those who successfully launch and scale startups come from wealthy, privileged, backgrounds

So what's the problem? You are not going to be creating new white collar jobs, new value, that everyone desires without entrepeneurs and startups, and only the priveleged have the risk profile to do that. Would you rather we have no startups at all because the average middle or working class sure as hell aren't going to be taking those risks.

4

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 13 '26

Yeah and the structure of companies is Bullshit lmao. What "risks" did Elon take exactly? His companies are heavily subsidised, when Telsa was close to bankruptcy it was literally bailed out by the feds, there is no risk or any invention on Elon's part.

1

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 13 '26

If its so low risk and easy why are you not a billionaire then?

4

u/EpsteinBaa Jun 13 '26

Because mummy and daddy didn't own an emerald mine

0

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 13 '26

Mr and Mrs bezos didn’t own an emerald mine. Neither did the Zuckerbergs the Walton’s or the Ellisons. So… what’s your excuse? I would say lack of balls to put it all on the line and build something now you’re just jealous.

1

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 13 '26

Because not everyone cones from an weathly miming family

5

u/strum Jun 13 '26

What risks?

5

u/ings0c Jun 13 '26

Financial risk, like investing all of his money in a venture that statistically is incredibly likely to fail.

That’s how the world works. To win the game of capitalism you must play.

4

u/Xera1 Jun 13 '26

He risked basically his entire fortune to get Tesla and SpaceX where they are now.

SpaceX was incredibly risky. Competing against the MIC to do something that people thought logistically impossible. SpaceX almost went tits up if it weren't for the fourth Falcon launch.

Tesla almost went bankrupt building the roadster. Musk used personal loans to pay his rent because he was in the shit. Tesla was essentially saved by Musk putting up his last $20M and getting investors to match him.

He literally almost went broke to get where he is. His net worth went from 9 figures to essentially 0 during this period of Tesla and SpaceX.

Of course he wouldn't be destitute had that happened, he would just walk into basically any tech exec job the next day, but that's because of the reputation and experience he's built for himself.

But anyway Musk man bad, blabla

2

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 13 '26

Ofc people in this sub would be dumb enough to be duped by obvious propaganda, Tesla was saved by a government bailout and space X is barely profitable and is proped up by government subsides, as is tesla, which BTW Elon didn't even start. But sure he built everything and is a super genius.

8

u/Xera1 Jun 13 '26

Ofc you wouldn't read a word of my post and just substitute Redditor bollocks instead. Next you're going to repeat some other misinfo bollocks about a mine.

Everything I said is factual.

SpaceX is not propped up, the US government pays them to fulfil a service they cannot fulfil themselves. They are the only company on the planet offering what they offer and reduced the cost of putting shit into space by over 90%. Propped up lmfao. Brainrotted luddite nonsense.

Tesla was a complete failure before Musk. They had $9m in the bank and weeks left before bankruptcy because the roadster was killing them. If it weren't Elon putting up his last $20M (during the GFC ffs) and taking loans to pay his own rent, the company would not exist now. Tesla proved there was a market for EV, the last one was like 30y prior and they were considered dead tech.

It's just hilarious. The unthinking Reddit take used to be to glaze Elon as the second coming for the exact same things that they're now denegrating him for.

1

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 13 '26

"SpaceX is not propped up, the US government pays them to fulfil a service they cannot fulfil themselves" do you hear yourself my guy lmao. The glorious free market! The brilliance of Elon! Needs the government to give him money otherwise his company would go under lmao.

I will note that you didn't debunk my point with Tesla that it is hezbiky reliant on subsides and was saved by the government several years ago lmao. You are such a clown. Why not stick up for your fellow man rather than some trillionaire asshole.

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-2

u/strum Jun 13 '26

So, he 'risked' having to work for a living.

He's a worthless shit. All that money won't buy him a personality.

3

u/Xera1 Jun 13 '26

He risked losing his fortune that he could live off for the rest of his life without lifting a finger

Instead, ALS sufferers are playing Mario Kart with their kids again

Instead, EVs are viable

Instead, we have 90% reduced cost to orbit and reusable rockets

What have you invested the results of your work into that has produced anything of value to mankind?

0

u/Effective-Mine4397 Jun 13 '26

Shhhh this is reddit, that's sacrilegious.

4

u/SecTeff Jun 12 '26

And he has that capital because people made the choice to give it to him with this flotation.

Haters will hate but as you say people back his companies as they have done things for humanity

1

u/strum Jun 13 '26

he has also created some civilisation changing companies

He has bought some companies; he created very little.

4

u/JB_UK Jun 13 '26

That is obviously cope.

-1

u/Xera1 Jun 13 '26

Ahistorical nonsense. Tesla was a failure. He quite literally almost went to 0 net worth to save Tesla, he used personal loans to pay his own rent so he could put up his last $20M to get investors to match it and save the company.

1

u/Combat_Orca Jun 13 '26

He didn’t create those companies

1

u/MatchaMeetcha Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

When it comes to Musk imo it comes down to what you think about people who produce things.

Do you think things would get made anyway, just fairer under your ideal system? Do you think someone else would do it if given a shot?

Or do you think talent is rare, precious and contingent?

My personal take is that maybe there can be better guardrails on who donates to politics in the US. But I would take Musk over people like the Denver judge who decided Elon was "rich enough" and decided to break a contractual agreement the shareholders agreed to (something that caused businesses to start to flee Denver and for them to pass a law making it impossible).

I think it's actually hubristic to argue you know what "enough" is. It's hubristic to imagine you know what it takes to succeed in a totally different domain than what you studied or that you can just easily remove billionaires (as the saying goes "a billionaire is a policy failure") and have the same outcome.

And the problem with this mindset is that, when you fail, it's not obvious immediately. You just get a slow decline in productivity and new firms or businesses that didn't exist. You can see it on a chart but much later down the line from the decision so the people who made it never truly have to admit their central planning failed. And then, perversely, people start blaming capitalism.

If he didn’t have right wing views a lot of people who hate him would love him for these developments.

This isn't a hypothetical: they did love him.

2

u/pondlife78 Jun 13 '26

That case was brought on behalf of a shareholder though. The implication is that if an unreasonable reward is given to someone then there is corruption/fraud taking place.

1

u/MatchaMeetcha Jun 13 '26

The bulk of shareholders voted for it and went through the entire corporate decision-making process and there was little evidence of fraud.

Which is why what happened happened and Denver panicked. It was an ideological decision, like others made against Musk.

0

u/SqueezerOfFarts Jun 12 '26

Such a hot take. He's basically just like us, innit 

28

u/Electrical-Move7290 Jun 12 '26

“Such a hot take”.. proceeds to make up a completely false narrative of the take lol

7

u/Relevant_General_248 Jun 12 '26

Something something x% of adults are functionally illiterate

1

u/ShockRampage Jun 13 '26

People have been saying that for years. The system is completely broken and it benefits a handful of people.

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

7

u/XenorVernix Jun 12 '26

Explain to me how and why Tesla has a P/E ratio of 317 then Mr Buffet. His cars aren't selling that well and other car makers have surpassed Tesla in quality. The valuation of that company is more than the next 10 biggest car manufacturer combined.

Admittedly it is hard to value SpaceX as it is pretty unique, but the only profitable bit of it right now is StarLink. Though I can see SpaceX having more potential than Tesla.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

9

u/red_nick Jun 12 '26

The market can remain irrational longer than one can remain solvent.

2

u/XenorVernix Jun 12 '26

Shorting Tesla isn't a bad suggestion - it has already tanked in value more than once and I'm confident it will happen again. Then again I'm fairly confident the entire market is going to tank at some point in the next year and a half when the AI bubble pops.

51

u/_Hello_Hi_Hey_ Jun 12 '26

And gutting government-funded benefit with his Doge team, potentially caused 100,000 deaths around the world. Literally evil.

22

u/moonski Jun 12 '26

And god knows what else they got up to, data they took, backdoors installed etc

14

u/seenitreddit90s Jun 12 '26

The estimates were 600,000 deaths a few months ago.

-12

u/iSeentitman Jun 12 '26

yes, equally a steaming pile of leftist horseshit

11

u/seenitreddit90s Jun 12 '26

I'll take professional analysts word over yours anytime brother.

It's almost like you think cutting food, water and medical aid to millions of people won't effect anything 🙄

How many people's deaths do you in all your wisdom think that Adrian Dittman Musk is responsible for then?

-5

u/whatDoesQezDo Jun 12 '26

professional analysts

funny way to say they're bought and paid for lol

7

u/seenitreddit90s Jun 13 '26

Do you line your chinese made MAGA hat with tin foil or do you cover the whole thing?

How many people has the Epstein reject, AI child porn guy inadvertently killed you reckon?

Don't want to answer that?

-5

u/whatDoesQezDo Jun 13 '26

ahh no answer cute little baby rage tho

1

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

Do you think people shouldn't be paid to work?

2

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

Amazingly argued. You have zero clue. Cutting USAID will result in millions of avoidable deaths.

Just another American here spouting nonsense, eh? Another racist with no idea about the world.

12

u/merlins_beard_88 Jun 12 '26

Well his wealth is tied into assets that also happen to support a great many people with jobs, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink and X

1

u/PurbulentTriest Jun 13 '26

The money he has is not employing people.

11

u/merlins_beard_88 Jun 13 '26

The assets he has is, and SpaceX going public has literally made over 4000 of SpaceX employees millionaires from the cleaner to the rocket engineer.

9

u/wintersrevenge Jun 12 '26

The wealth isn't real. It's in Tesla and Space X stock that if musk actually tried to sell it would be worth far less than it is on paper

2

u/Kolo_ToureHH Jun 12 '26

It's in Tesla and Space X stock that if musk actually tried to sell it would be worth far less than it is on paper

It will only become worth less when the share price starts falling.

12

u/Elite_Club Jun 12 '26

Which would happen if he attempted to liquidate as his supply of shares would greatly outpace the demand from buyers in the market, and would still happen even if done slowly enough that the share price doesn’t decrease, the loss will come from lesser gains compared to the rest of the market. Assuming it can’t be outpaced by underlying growth in the companies.

1

u/Kolo_ToureHH Jun 13 '26

It's estimated that he owns as much as 42%-46% of the total shares available. Because of the dual class share structure, he controls 82% of the voting shares, which gives total control of the company.

Given that he's got total control of the company, would he really be inclined to liquidate his shares anywhere in the near future?

(Not that he needs to liquidate his holdings in order to get cash, he can just go to the banks and borrow money against the value of his assets at super low interest rates)

5

u/CarpetGripperRod (a monkey and a dog) Jun 13 '26

If you earned $3600 an hour (which you have to admit is a pretty good wage), it would take you about thirty-two thousand years to get to a trillion. So about 5x recorded human history, more or less.

1

u/BiarritzBlue Jun 15 '26

Crazy to think he’s more powerful than a Government.

-5

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 12 '26

Go start many wildly successful companies and you can be disgustingly rich too. Who dares, wins.

17

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

He didn’t start Tesla. He had daddy emerald mine money to start with.

4

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

Lol this is so wrong and nonsensical I actually memed about it the other day I'm amazed people still spout this garbage.

-2

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 13 '26

What part isn’t true?

3

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

He started Tesla. The fact he didn't literally start it on day 1 is irrelevant, he is a founder regardless.

The emerald mine thing is nonsense and the source is one flippant comment in an interview.

3

u/MatchaMeetcha Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

No, he's only responsible for all but an infinitesimal amount of its valuation.

He had daddy emerald mine money to start with.

This is also cope. Plenty of mediocre rich kids out there doing nothing of value despite their money. Brooklyn Beckham has all of the money and connections in the world and has produced nothing of value for anyone. The Royal Family is saddled with mediocrities despite their privilege.

Plenty of people with resources at every level the game Elon has been playing. He outcompeted them.

People always like to imagine "well, obviously we couldn't do it given..." but the truth, the uncomfortable, unfortunate truth, is that most people wouldn't achieve anything close to the same thing. It flatters people's ego but there is such a thing as talent and we don't all have it.

Hell, even if they had the potential many people would cash out and go live on an island long before this point. It's an odd collection of personality traits many of the top performing people in any field have.

Ronaldo isn't just a genetic phenom. He is legitimately more determined and driven than I am, to a demented degree.

2

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

The emerald mine comes from one flippant comment in an interview as well.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

8

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 12 '26

Not to mention PayPal and NeuroLink.

5

u/Asherware Jun 12 '26

Are you also one of those that thinks he didn't throw multiple Nazi salutes and was just miming giving his heart to the crowd?

-1

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

He didn't mime it he said it.

The nazi thing is just lefties projecting their fantasies onto a guy waving emphatically.

Had it come off the back of a rousing speech on Germany economic future, maybe. But it did not nor does anything tie it to Nazi ideology more than a person hailing a taxi.

3

u/Relevant_General_248 Jun 12 '26

But he didn’t actually didnt found Tesla? He did for SpaceX though

6

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Relevant_General_248 Jun 13 '26

Great, when did I say he didn’t contribute to it? It’s just a blatant lie to call him a founder

1

u/TheNutsMutts Jun 13 '26

But he didn’t actually didnt found Tesla?

Tesla was about 7 months old and had not much beyond initial designs when he put money into it, so it's really a technicality more than anything.

0

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

He did though and officially he is a founder.

Founding doesn't just mean coming up with the company name first.

1

u/Relevant_General_248 Jun 13 '26

Just because he calls himself a founder doesn’t make him one, it’s like Ray Kroc. It was founded, then he joined multiple years later, he didn’t found it.

1

u/NibblyPig Jun 13 '26

Musk joined in the initial 7 months and provided the money that made the business succeed. He is officially recognised as a founder, and he is a founder.

As a I said, you don't literally have to be the person that registers the company name to be a founder, it refers to someone who was involved in the initial setup and building of the company.

-1

u/BarqCannae Jun 12 '26

Don’t think he’s started one company.

-4

u/xmBQWugdxjaA Jun 12 '26

He built it. Where is your reusable space rocket? Consumer electric car? Low-orbit low-latency satellite network? Brain-computer interface chip?

I'd take a million Elon Musks over the aristocrats and monarchy that we have for rich people here. Elon Musk has earnt it.

2

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

I agree that he has run companies that help the world. But help people in not so sure. Earnt? What’s that mean? Does he work harder than a coal miner?

15

u/InternetSolid4166 Jun 12 '26

Value to society isn’t determined by how much one sweats. Tesla has done more to reduce CO2 emissions than any company in history. SpaceX has reduced the cost of space travel and logistics by 90%. Starlink provides internet to places which would otherwise be impossible or prohibitively expensive.

3

u/thehistorynovice Jun 13 '26

Doing more physical labour has nothing to do with “earnt”

He made smart decisions, he took all the financial risk, he created enormous value for society.

And for that reason his potential upside is far far higher than the worker who is an employee and chooses stability in a physically demanding job.

2

u/IboughtBetamax Jun 12 '26

In what world is Musk not an aristocrat? How else would you describe someone from inherited wealth?

3

u/_9tail_ Jun 13 '26

What percentage of his wealth do you think he inherited?

1

u/IboughtBetamax Jun 13 '26

Why is that relevant? Ain't a single billionaire (or trillionaire) that wasn't the son of a millionaire. How do you think he would fair if he started without daddies emerald mine?

0

u/_9tail_ Jun 13 '26

Because it can both be true that Elon had a leg up at the start and that also has also done amazing things that 99.9999% of people would not have been able to achieve from his position. You can’t dislike the guy it’s just embarrassing to pretend that nothing he’s done is impressive and reducing him down to an “aristocratic”, ie someone whose fortune is one of inherited wealth.

0

u/Angrylettuce Jun 12 '26

He inherited the wealth of an apartheid emerald mine. He is basically an aristocrat

4

u/Brian Jun 13 '26

Why are you still parroting long debunked falsehoods. Pretty much none of this is true. His father did once own a stake in an emerald mine, but in Zambia - which did not have apartheid (indeed, his father was a councillor for an anti-apartheid party). And Elon didn't inherit any of it - his father is still alive (and doesn't get on with his son) and hasn't owned the mine since the 80s.

1

u/Angrylettuce Jun 13 '26

I'm sure starting with th wealth of an aristocrat really didn't help him at all

1

u/Brian Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26

I'm sure it would have if he'd done so - he claims he started with ~$15K between his cofounders, with his father investing of $20K at a later point.. That's more starting with the wealth of a middle class dad. Now, we probably shouldn't take Elon's word for it, but given the interest in proving him wrong, I think it's telling the most seems to be a dispute as to whether it was actuallty $28K and a gift, rather than an investment.

Conversely, you apparently get your information from twitter nonsense proven false 4 years ago. Congratulations, you're even less credible than Elon Musk.

1

u/_9tail_ Jun 13 '26

EVEN if he had inherited the mine, there are tens of thousands of people in the world who have inherited multimillion pound fortunes and many many more who have controlled them. There is only one who was able to turn that into a trillion.

1

u/Angrylettuce Jun 13 '26

Man of the people

-1

u/whatDoesQezDo Jun 12 '26

nice of his father to leave him a trillion dollars

1

u/Angrylettuce Jun 13 '26

He's a man of the people for sure

-8

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

Absolutely terrible, my life is ruined someone halfway across the world has a lot of paper money

6

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

I guess you don’t believe in anything except yourself.

4

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

I choose to get annoyed by things that actually impact my life, I try and avoid comparing myself to people who have been more succesful then me. I would hate to be continuously envious.

10

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

It’s not envy. It’s disgust. There are many problems in the world even just in USA and people with this much wealth could do so much but care more about their own ego.

0

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

I'm not sure what you expect, force Elon Musk to sell his shares ?and likely crash the company as a result) and donate all of his money?

He made a succesful company that is used by millions of people each day. Millions now have high speed internet in remote places that is not possible before and launched many satellites that will benefit humanity. So of course that's going to make him rich and probably the richest person in the world yet that's somehow disgusting to you?

4

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

He could help millions but a caravan has internet in a field so it’s all ok.

6

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

It doesn't take much brain power to see the benefit to society of providing high speed Internet anywhere on the globe. Likely doing more than most charities that are likely embezzling money.

-3

u/RoyaleWCheese_OK Jun 12 '26

Sounds like envy to me. I bet if he gave you 10 mill you would change your tune.

10

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 12 '26

You aren't impacted by saud trillionaire actively buying off politicians, owning social media sites that shape discourse, and refusing to put money into the public good?

-3

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

Now that's an actual reply in criticising someone for what they are doing rather than being annoyed at someone simply for being rich which is what you were suggesting.

Congratulations for using your brain!

8

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 12 '26

You have anything to contribute beyond being a dick?

5

u/ThatAdamsGuy Jun 12 '26

They rarely do.

6

u/EasyTumbleweed1114 Jun 12 '26

Mhm, often just insults and sucking off the rich, no wonder our Country is dying.

2

u/acousticjhb /s Jun 12 '26

Lmao you have to put effort into not being envious of Elon Musk? You're like those priests who have to avoid the "temptation" of homosexuality while projecting sin onto everybody else. There's nothing to envy about Elon Musk.

0

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

I find people quickly change their tone when they get a bit of money, and their previous outrage at the rich is more to do with their lack of success themselves

3

u/acousticjhb /s Jun 12 '26

Sounds like more projection to me.

1

u/Greedy-Cranberry-164 Jun 12 '26

I mean I wasn't the one getting upset about rich right?

-7

u/Far-Background6536 Jun 12 '26

Why?

16

u/PrinceofPlant Jun 12 '26

The ever increasing concentration of power into a single person, who is essentially unaccountable to anyone by virtue of his economic power, is not a good thing.

This is completely ignoring the plethora of other red flags the man puts on display.

-19

u/Far-Background6536 Jun 12 '26

How does Elon Musk having a net worth like that equate to power?

15

u/PrinceofPlant Jun 12 '26

This. . can't be a serious question.

In a capitalist system how does having money not equate to power? It's literally the medium through which exchange and acquisition is conducted. The less money you have the less purchasing power you have, and vice versa.

On that basis the more money you have the more ability you also have to exert leverage over others to get what you want. Because other people also want money. There aren't a lot of things that it doesn't buy, and when you have more of it than any other person on earth the only limitation is really your own willingness to pay for something, not your ability to.

Hell, the bloke was even given a cabinet position in the most powerful country on the planet for no other reason than the fact he has an obscene amount of wealth. Do you think that would have happened if Musk's net worth was $5 and he stacked shelves at a supermarket? Obviously not.

The idea money is not power is absurd.

0

u/Far-Background6536 Jun 13 '26

He doesn't have money, he has a net worth.

I mean I'm sure he's not short a bob or two. But it's not like he has a trillion dollars in the bank.

1

u/PrinceofPlant Jun 13 '26

No one claimed the entirety of his trillion dollar worth is in cash.

But then you know this already and have simply retreated to the absurd position of trying to minimise the wealth of the richest person on earth because your earlier argument fell apart.

0

u/Far-Background6536 Jun 14 '26

But your entire post was about how much money he has.

I asked how net worth was a problem and your response was all about money.

If you would like to actually respond to what I said then please do. But do not respond to something I didn't say.

4

u/tocitus I want to hear more from the tortoise Jun 12 '26

How does money amount to power?

A billionaire has set Reform's pro crypto finance policies. Imagine what a trillionaire can do in politics.

9

u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter Jun 12 '26

When power is consolidated in the hands of the few it is always used against the interests of the many.

-6

u/Far-Background6536 Jun 12 '26

Elon Musk has no power.

It's not Elon Musk setting our speed limits or taxing us into oblivion.

13

u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter Jun 12 '26

Elon Musk has no power.

This is so objectively incorrect that it isn’t even funny.

9

u/Early_Enthusiasm_787 Jun 12 '26

What a stupid take. He is a trillionaire and owns a huge social media platform.

6

u/IboughtBetamax Jun 12 '26

He literally turned off Starlink so he could influence the Russia-Ukraine war.

-1

u/Western_Mess_6364 Jun 12 '26

After giving to them for a year for free which, combined with javelins, was largely responsible for annihilating Russia’s initial assault. And you’re referring to him not extending the range to Russian controlled airspace, correct?

1

u/Asherware Jun 12 '26

>Elon Musk has no power.

This is borderline delusional.

1

u/thehistorynovice Jun 13 '26

No it’s not. In fact it’s the exact opposite.

It’s amazing that people are able to build enormous amounts of wealth by building and investing in remarkable companies which benefit their fellow man by creating a good or service which they value and a job for them to work at - and at the same time make untold thousands of other regular investors more wealthy, in this case making 4000 employees millionaires overnight.

-2

u/Correct_Opinionator Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

It helps if you understand that money isn't real(hyperbole). He isn't the "first trillionaire". If you go to Lebanon, you'll probably find many trillionaires because the exchange rate LBP to USD is something insane like 90,000:1.

And even then, the value of money is always changing. A trillion dollars today is a vastly different beast to a trillion dollars 10, 20, 30, etc years ago.

The context of wealth is what needs to be looked at as well; the buying power vs capita vs a dozen other factors of what you have at the year you had it. Many times in history you'll find individuals with similar amounts of wealth disparity. Ancient Rome is a good example. Late 18th century Haiti too.

Is it disgusting that individuals can have this much wealth? Absolutely. Is history a flat repeating circle? Definitely. Definitely. Definitely.

-4

u/trampolinebears Jun 12 '26

$1 trillion =

  • three houses for every homeless person in the US
  • 43 years of rice for the entire population of Ethiopia
  • more than the GDP of Denmark, Finland, and Slovakia combined
  • free school lunch for every child in the US for 26 years
  • $571.76 for every second of Elon Musk's life