Well, if you make $10MM at $250k/yr over 40 years in California, you're only taking home maybe 65% of that. And you're presumably paying rent. Let's be generous

Well, if you make $10MM at $250k/yr over 40 years in California, you're only taking home maybe 65% of that. And you're presumably paying rent. Let's be generous and call it $24,000/yr, and say that you do incredibly well at saving and manage to put together a down payment after 5 years, so after that only $5000/yr (wild ballparking, I haven't done the math since I'm so far from being a homeowner) goes to interest/taxes rather than your own equity. At the end of 40 years, that puts you at $6.2M - a further 20% of which is tied up in housing equity - before any other expenses. That's a decent retirement, yes, but it's not rich in the way that the elites are rich. Not even close.