Certainly he was above average. But that’s not “born into wealth.” $28,000 is the price of a modest new car. There are huge numbers of people who are able to get seed money like that from friends and relatives to start a business, but clearly Elon did something more than those people to grow that to the $400 billion his current net wealth stands at.
The problem is that Musk has become such an intensely politically and culturally polarizing figure that saying even the remotely “positive” thing about him - such as “he’s actually a pretty good self-made businessman” - gets interpreted as “boy howdy do I ever love Trump and misogyny!”
When 90% of your countrymen are born into a world where they cannot legally hold the same jobs as you. You are born into extreme privilege.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn’t a pretty good self-made businessman.
If you want to judge Americans by global standards, then basically every single one of them is “born into wealth” because most of the people in the world live below the American poverty line.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn’t a pretty good self-made businessman.
Going from a $30,000 seed investment to $400 billion dollars would tend to suggest otherwise.
Call him a terrible person, sure. You can’t buy a good personality. But as a businessman the numbers seem pretty clear.
Certainly he was above average. But that’s not “born into wealth.” $28,000 is the price of a modest new car. There are huge numbers of people who are able to get seed money like that from friends and relatives to start a business, but clearly Elon did something more than those people to grow that to the $400 billion his current net wealth stands at.
The problem is that Musk has become such an intensely politically and culturally polarizing figure that saying even the remotely “positive” thing about him - such as “he’s actually a pretty good self-made businessman” - gets interpreted as “boy howdy do I ever love Trump and misogyny!”
When 90% of your countrymen are born into a world where they cannot legally hold the same jobs as you. You are born into extreme privilege.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn’t a pretty good self-made businessman.
Elon Musk started his companies in America.
If you want to judge Americans by global standards, then basically every single one of them is “born into wealth” because most of the people in the world live below the American poverty line.
Going from a $30,000 seed investment to $400 billion dollars would tend to suggest otherwise.
Call him a terrible person, sure. You can’t buy a good personality. But as a businessman the numbers seem pretty clear.