I do feel like statements like "Musk has $180 billion dollars" are too easily argued against and only work if you're talking to people who already agree with you, because he kinda doesn't.
I'm not well versed in economics and I don't wanna look like a clown when confronted about it, so could someone explain what this $180 billion dollars figure actually means?
Like, how could it be taken away? How much money do these billionaires actually have, and on the other hand, how much do they have direct or indirect control over?
Also, this might be a stupid question, but I really would like to understand this and google hasn't given me a real answer:
If Elon Musk has $180 billion dollars, but "only" in the form of assets: Is that, simply said, equal to $180 billion dollars that the rest of the population doesn't have?
Is it fair to say that he is hoarding that money when it's like, not really money? Like, could a theoretical socialist state feed it's hungry by taking away stocks and assets from Jeff Bezos? Granted, even if he "only" has a couple hundred million in his bank account that's still way too much.
I guess the overarching theme is the net worth, how real is it, how much can be done with it and should we maybe stop bringing it up in debates based on the answers? I hope you guys can help me out.
The stock price would tank if he tried to sell normally, he'd need to organise a merger and probably be required to continue working there for a set period.
But a lot of these paper fortunes are fleeting. There's a few examples of Australian mining magnates with too many eggs in one basket losing everything because coal or ore prices change. It's almost like cryptocurrency. Gotta sell to spend but you're potentially missing out