There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person You're not making a serious point

There are plenty of people in the world who would think that anything over $500/month is way more than enough for one person You're not making a serious point if you're looking at world income to guide policy in the USA, or any other first world country, you're just making up a strawman. do billionaires employ people I'm sure they have a small household staff, maybe security, yacht staff, private pilots, so maybe in the small hundreds. But Tesla employees a 100,000 people, SpaceX employes 10,000 - both of those companies would exist regardless of Elon Musk's personal wealth. In fact, having so much wealth in one person is a liability to the company -- Musk can singlehandedly tank Tesla's stock.