Elon Musk trolls Jeff Bezos as he widens his lead as the richest person on Earth
amp.cnn.com
Elon Musk's personal wealth is now $222 billion, widening his gap as the richest person in the world according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index. Musk's personal wealth skyrocketed an extra $10.6 billion after a secondary share sale by investors, announced last week, valued the space company over $100 billion, CNBC reported.

Okay, why is Musk worth so much? Bezos I can understand given how huge Amazon is? But what has Musk done that’s anywhere close to that in scale?

  • machiabelly [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I have a theory about this. Musk is worth so much because he has to be. Everyone knows that the contradictions of capitalism are becoming more and more daunting. Our economic system needs someone to propose magical solutions to convince people that capitalism is salvagable. He makes people believe that capitalism really can innovate. He makes people think that there are veryverysmart people at the top who can come up with solutions.

    We dont need mass transit we need hyperloops. We dont need to end suburbia, we just need electric cars. We dont need to reinvent our electrical grids, we just need rooftop solar and tesla batteries.

    Elon musk is the equivalent of the people who are waiting for jesus to return and fix everything. He epitomizes capitalism as a religion and is more than anyone else a prophetic figure.

    His net worth reflects his importance to global capitalism more than the sum total of productive forces he owns.

    :cat-trans:

    Idk tho

    • ShareThatBread [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Good post, but on this bit

      We dont need to reinvent our electrical grids, we just need rooftop solar and tesla batteries.

      Depends on the area. For example, fire prone areas would be at times better with local power generation rather than power lines feeding in. Some of the worst bushfires in Australia have been caused by powerline faults. The former would institute the latter in parts.

      • machiabelly [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Same with California. As much as anything though these are inevitable problems with capitalism. Ignoring maintenence to hide a lack of growth is a common issue. These problems wouldnt be happening if things were run properly. Though its not like AES states have totally avoided beaurocratic breakdowns.

        Regardless local power generation doesnt have to be rooftop solar. There are lots of other ways that are more efficient. And most importantly the batteries that Elon uses are incompatible with a healthy climate. Its hard to make batteries efficient without doing them at scale.