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The "Elon had it easy because he had a fortune from emerald mining" is total bollocks. He was certainly not "rich" when he came to US and was in university here

The "Elon had it easy because he had a fortune from emerald mining" is total bollocks. He was certainly not "rich" when he came to US and was in university here, and when he badly needed money at the beginning of Tesla and SpaceX there was certainly no secret backup of "Emerald Mine" money. I'm not sure where this rubbish conspiracy came from but if there was Emerald Mine money there wasn't much of it. You may not like to hear it, but Elon's big start came from the success of X and Paypal which then bankrolled the beginnings of SpaceX and Tesla, it wasn't from a rich daddy.

ep103 3y ago
> Elon's big start came from the success of X and Paypal Funny you mention this as why he was self-made, where by all accounts he was considered an awful coder in this Paypal position, and was only able to be in the country (illegally) at the time, or secure this job, was because of his family's money and connections.
- colpabar 3y ago
  can you post a link to one of the "all accounts" you're referring to?
  - hardwaregeek 3y ago
    I wouldn't say awful but it's clear that he and Max Levchin did not see eye to eye, at least judging from Levchin's interview in Founders At Work. Musk pushed for them to move from Unix to Windows and Levchin disagreed with that move.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      > Musk pushed for them to move from Unix to Windows and Levchin disagreed with that move. Because Musk's push came from no objective reason beyond he "didn't know it". The Board said "you're the CEO, you don't need to know all the technologies".
    - belter 3y ago
      Max Levchinin in Founders At Work pag 7: "...Peter took some time off. The guy who ran X.com became the CEO, and I remained the CTO. He was really into Windows, and I was really into Unix. So there was this bad blood for a while between the engineering teams. He was convinced that Windows was where it’s at and that we have to switch to Windows, but the platform that we used was, I thought, built really well and I wanted to keep it. I wanted to stay on Unix..." "...I had this intern that I hired before the merger, and we thought, “We built all these cool Unix projects, but it’s kind of pointless now because they are going to scrap the platform. We might as well do something else.” So he and I decided we were going to find ourselves fun projects. We did one kind of mean project where we built a load tester package that would beat up on the Windows prototype (the next version was going to be in Windows). We built a load tester that would test against the Unix platform and the new Windows one and show in beautiful graphs that the Windows version had 1 percent of the scalability of the Unix one. “Do you really want to do that?”... ...It was me acting out, but it was kind of a low time for me because I was not happy with the way we were going..." "...At the time, already I had hated the guy’s guts for forcing me to do Windows, and then, in the end, I was like, “You gotta go, man.” My whole argument to him was, “We can’t switch to Windows now. This fraud thing is most important to the company. You can’t allow any additional changes. It’s one of these things where you want to change one big thing at a time, and the fraud is a pretty big thing. So introducing a new platform or doing anything major—you just don’t want to do it right now.” That was sort of the trigger for a fairly substantial conflict that resulted in him leaving and Peter coming back and me taking over fraud...."
- prepend 3y ago
  > considered an awful coder in this Paypal position This is an odd criticism as he was the CEO of PayPal. Why would it be important if he was an awful coder or not? I’m not a proponent of Musk but this seems like odd shade to throw on him.
  - sulam 3y ago
    He was CEO of X.com for less than a year and was fired by the board. Then they merged with the predecessor to PayPal, which was more successful. He become CEO of the merged company, but was again fired for poor technical decision making (among other things, he insisted that the company build on the Windows stack instead of Linux) before the company rebranded itself as PayPal. So, technically he was never the CEO of "PayPal", just the company that became PayPal, and he got himself fired by the boards of both the companies that turned into PayPal. He retained 11% ownership of PayPal and ended up making a decent amount of money from the EBay acquisition.
    - scottiebarnes 3y ago
      And then he failed his way up with Tesla and SpaceX, two companies which were better off without his presence. I sure I wish I was that incompetent.
    - prepend 3y ago
      I understand all that, my question was why would it matter if he was an awful coder. Or they people thought he was an awful coder. It is objectively true that he was ceo of x.com and PayPal, but neither of those positions require coding skills. I’m not defending Musk as a CEO or human or anything. I’m just curious why it matters to bring up people thought his coding sucked. Was he a good chef? Was he terrible at Mario Kart? Want to list off other random complaints as well?
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > This is an odd criticism as he was the CEO of PayPal. He was an awful CEO of X (which is why he was forced out as CEO twice, and was never CEO of PayPal), too, which may be more to the point, and the successful product X named itself for after forcing himself out the second time was acquired (and was the occasion of his brief return) after Musk’s visions had failed. > Why would it be important if he was an awful coder or not? It probably wouldn’t, if he didn’t spend his time as CEO trying to do some other job instead. It’s not always bad if your CEO is doing some other role as well as being CEO, but its a doubly bad thing if they are doing some other role and they are a poor choice for the other job.
- scottiebarnes 3y ago
  lol, where did you learn your Elon Musk history? He started X.com which was an online payments company. Later, X.com and Confinity Inc, would merge and rename themselves Paypal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    Except even that also implies that Elon had some say in PayPal, when in reality, Confinity had already developed what would become PayPal, including filing trademarks and such, at the merger. Musk's tenure in the newly merged company consisted of complaining incessently that he didn't like/know Solaris and Java so the working POC/prototype should be thrown away and rebuilt in Windows/ASP, for four months until the board had enough and terminated him as CEO.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      >he didn't like/know Solaris and Java so the working POC/prototype should be thrown away and rebuilt in Windows/ASP, for four months until the board had enough and terminated him as CEO. Goddamn the man hasn't changed one iota in twenty years.
- concordDance 3y ago
  I'd love to hear what people who talk about these family connections actually think they were and where they got this idea from. I've heard it claimed hundreds of times but with no clear idea what these connections were, how they came about or what they were used for. Or even any evidence whatsoever that they existed...
warent 3y ago
This is certainly the image he would love people to have: a humble immigrant from the poor South Africa, hustling his way into the American dream. The reality is that he is from a wealthy, well-connected, post-apartheid white family. They funded his coming to Canada, the US, University, and getting first business off the ground. The reality is that he has had a silver spoon his entire life.
- JVillella 3y ago
  Who cares?
  - afavour 3y ago
    Musk certainly does.
  - JVillella 3y ago
    Let me be more specific: why do the people speaking out about his "fortunate" past care so much? As long as it didn't come from something unethical, why does it matter to you? I don't want read between the lines, but it's hard not to think it's a way for people to feel better about their own accomplishments by saying someone else had a massive head start. Whether others do or don't, we should all be trying our best, be grateful for what we have, and proud of where we came from.
    - warent 3y ago
      There are at least two big points for people to care about. The money did come from something unethical--his family was enriched by segregation; racism; apartheid. That emerald money is dirty and is likely a key reason why Elon would deny its existence. This brings us to the second thing: Elon lying about this. He has demonstrated that he is willing to lie about something this significant, which should do real damage to his credibility and trustworthiness if we are being logical and objective. What else is he willing to lie about?
      - 55555 3y ago
afavour 3y ago
You're correct that Musk isn't a "billionaire heir to an emerald mine" but his own father has said the emerald mine was real and that it helped pay Musk's living expenses at college: > Errol went as far as to say that emerald money paid for his son's move to the US, where Elon would go on to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School on scholarship — with, apparently, emerald-generated cash in his pocket for living expenses. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine > when he badly needed money at the beginning of Tesla and SpaceX there was certainly no secret backup of "Emerald Mine" money That's not personal wealth, that's company investment. Just because you (or your family) doesn't have spare money kicking around to finance a space rocket company doesn't mean that you're not personally rich and able to pay for things "regular" folks cannot and have connections they don't.
- deelowe 3y ago
  Am I rich because I've funded a 529 plan for my kids? This story is way overblown.
  - samstave 3y ago
    I funded a 529 plan with $40,000 19 years ago. It lost money. 529s are a fucking scam.
    - deelowe 3y ago
      I'm starting to feel the same, honestly. Do you know if it was just your plan or is there something where I can find more info showing how these are not smart investments?
      - samstave 3y ago
        They are not smart investments because you have no control over where the money is pointed in the plan. So if you call your advisor, and say "i want my 529 to only focus on X" they tell you that you have no control over the index and the plan will be the most conservative 50-year-old actuary data which has no fucking clue where the market is heading and then berate you for when their 529 index loses value... I was ready to pay that investment banker's family a personal visit with skills that I have accumulated over a number of decades.
coliveira 3y ago
Elon received a lot of money from his Father during his college years, and the very reason why he was in college in America is that he was bankrolled by a South African entrepreneur. Without this father he would be nowhere close to where he is.
- danenania 3y ago
  Can’t you say the same about anyone who grows up upper middle class or above in the US? Paying for kids’ college is pretty standard. Many middle class families do it too. There’s plenty to criticize Elon about, but this one’s a bit of a reach.
- concordDance 3y ago
  Note to readers: the claimed amount he received from his father is $115k split between him and his brother.
jeffwask 3y ago
> I'm not sure where this rubbish conspiracy came from Umm... his father. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  And Elon himself: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1611861409733967872?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1611861409733967872?lan... > This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. The call is coming from inside the house, Elmo.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Shhhh you're supposed to ignore all the things Elon has said in the past that directly contradict things he says now.
  - jodrellblank 3y ago
    Simply prove it and get $93,000 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35920193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35920193
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      What’s hilarious is that okay, even if his dad made it up… Elon has -also- said that he and his family would stuff their pockets with money and stones that wouldn’t fit in the safe from overflowing. What next? “I only said I did it, but I never actually saw myself doing it?” At some point there is a recognition that (at least) one of two things is accurate: 1) that a mine exists, or 2) that Elon is a serial liar. Also, “get a million dogecoin”… is that before or after he hires a PI to go into your background for a little light character assassination for making him look foolish?
throw310822 3y ago
The funny thing about it is that, even if the emerald mine had been real, it would explain maybe 1/10000 of Musk's wealth. If those who talk about the "emerald mine" had managed to multiply the wealth of their family by 10000 they would consider it an incredible success.
- runesofdoom 3y ago
  It's a lot easier to gamble with your future when failure means a comfortable life of freedom, than when it means poverty and destitution.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    It's also significantly easier to turn $100k into infinite money in the dot com boom
- fakedang 3y ago
  Time value of money is a thing, you know? Back in those days, emerald mines were literally the equivalent of present-day tech IPO money. And if you read his biography by Ashlee Vance, you'll find out how the family would take vacations and travel to places by private plane.
throw93 3y ago
Because he said it himself? Why else would anyone come up with such specific source of income? Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140413112637/https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/right-stuff/elon-musk-interview-3.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140413112637/https://www.askme... His dad invested $200k at 10% at a later stage. I'm pretty sure it qualifies as rich daddy. Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056 Btw Musk had little to do with the success of X. The revenue of PayPal was merely $61 million at the time Musk was fired as CEO of X.com(later PayPal).
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  There's an unimaginable gulf between buying books paying tuition to college (especially back when that was affordable), and an investment in a business that's the equivalent of about $350k today. Elon was never going to have to eat rice and beans, or go work in a cubicle for a big corp to pay the bills if any of his ventures failed.
- concordDance 3y ago
  > His dad invested $200k at 10% at a later stage You're reading that wrong. Elon is claiming his dad invested 10% OF a $200k round of seed funding. The actual amount was $28k. (See wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2 )
  - throw93 3y ago
    I was being more charitable to Elon by trusting what he said himself. I know the $28k number. Almost 40% of the households with college age kids earn less than 70k before taxes. How many would be able to afford to give a $28k loan to their kids? Source - https://www.statista.com/statistics/782411/parental-income-of-freshman-college-students-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/782411/parental-income-o...
    - concordDance 3y ago
      You weren't being charitable to Elon, you just either misread what was in the tweet or mistyped and claimed his dad invested $200k. Median household income is $70k, so I'd expect you'd need to be upper middle class or quite good with money to loan $28k to your kids. I certainly won't argue that the Musks were poor, but there's a very big difference between "able to help their kids through college and loan $28k" and "silver spoon trust fund kids".
dragonwriter 3y ago
> Elon’s big start came from the success of X and Paypal To which Elon contributed, AFAICT, money (both directly and in his ability to scare up capital), not management. He was forced out as CEO of X when they had no product success, X bought the company that owned PayPal and briefly brought him back as CEO then forced him out against six months later, after which X renamed itself after its one successful product, which it had acquired.
zamalek 3y ago
> if there was Emerald Mine money there wasn't much of it. You don't go to an American University as anything but a very rich African, or as a sponsorship. Source: I am a born African. I sure hope it was emerald money, else his father has some explaining to do to SARS.
- concordDance 3y ago
  University was much cheaper back then and he apparently got a student loan somehow.
james-redwood 3y ago
I'm a former Rhodesian (present day Zimbabwe) who moved to South Africa after things went south in Zim. For context, I'm white, so it's not like I have a racial gripe against Musk. Elon went to one of the fanciest private schools in the country's capital and lived in one of its richest suburbs. Yes, technically Boys High is a public school, but people from outside South Africa don't know what the Model C school policy was. His father was extraordinarily wealthy and if you do read interviews by both Elon and Errol, they both admit this. His mother was an international supermodel and his family was generally pretty well connected in the greater scheme of things. The entire story about him struggling during college (where he went to an Ivy League university paid for by his father) is complete bullshit. I don't dispute his ingenuity in starting Zip2 (funded by his father too by the way), but he wasn't starting from the bottom with no help - that's the grossly inaccurate part that Elon still pushes for optics and people who are too stupid or unaware of how SA works lap it up.
khazhoux 3y ago
And even if he had been fabulously wealthy since childhood, it still wouldn't discredit his accomplishments. There's how many tens of thousands of mega-rich kids right now who won't do a single thing of note with their lives?
la64710 3y ago
It does not matter if Musk had an emerald mine or not. For sure he turned a diamond mine (Twitter) to a shit pool. Do you trust him to be the CEO of your company? Ask yourself. I personally want a level headed guy.

ep103 3y ago

> Elon's big start came from the success of X and Paypal Funny you mention this as why he was self-made, where by all accounts he was considered an awful coder in this Paypal position, and was only able to be in the country (illegally) at the time, or secure this job, was because of his family's money and connections.

colpabar 3y ago
can you post a link to one of the "all accounts" you're referring to?
- hardwaregeek 3y ago
  I wouldn't say awful but it's clear that he and Max Levchin did not see eye to eye, at least judging from Levchin's interview in Founders At Work. Musk pushed for them to move from Unix to Windows and Levchin disagreed with that move.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > Musk pushed for them to move from Unix to Windows and Levchin disagreed with that move. Because Musk's push came from no objective reason beyond he "didn't know it". The Board said "you're the CEO, you don't need to know all the technologies".
  - belter 3y ago
    Max Levchinin in Founders At Work pag 7: "...Peter took some time off. The guy who ran X.com became the CEO, and I remained the CTO. He was really into Windows, and I was really into Unix. So there was this bad blood for a while between the engineering teams. He was convinced that Windows was where it’s at and that we have to switch to Windows, but the platform that we used was, I thought, built really well and I wanted to keep it. I wanted to stay on Unix..." "...I had this intern that I hired before the merger, and we thought, “We built all these cool Unix projects, but it’s kind of pointless now because they are going to scrap the platform. We might as well do something else.” So he and I decided we were going to find ourselves fun projects. We did one kind of mean project where we built a load tester package that would beat up on the Windows prototype (the next version was going to be in Windows). We built a load tester that would test against the Unix platform and the new Windows one and show in beautiful graphs that the Windows version had 1 percent of the scalability of the Unix one. “Do you really want to do that?”... ...It was me acting out, but it was kind of a low time for me because I was not happy with the way we were going..." "...At the time, already I had hated the guy’s guts for forcing me to do Windows, and then, in the end, I was like, “You gotta go, man.” My whole argument to him was, “We can’t switch to Windows now. This fraud thing is most important to the company. You can’t allow any additional changes. It’s one of these things where you want to change one big thing at a time, and the fraud is a pretty big thing. So introducing a new platform or doing anything major—you just don’t want to do it right now.” That was sort of the trigger for a fairly substantial conflict that resulted in him leaving and Peter coming back and me taking over fraud...."
prepend 3y ago
> considered an awful coder in this Paypal position This is an odd criticism as he was the CEO of PayPal. Why would it be important if he was an awful coder or not? I’m not a proponent of Musk but this seems like odd shade to throw on him.
- sulam 3y ago
  He was CEO of X.com for less than a year and was fired by the board. Then they merged with the predecessor to PayPal, which was more successful. He become CEO of the merged company, but was again fired for poor technical decision making (among other things, he insisted that the company build on the Windows stack instead of Linux) before the company rebranded itself as PayPal. So, technically he was never the CEO of "PayPal", just the company that became PayPal, and he got himself fired by the boards of both the companies that turned into PayPal. He retained 11% ownership of PayPal and ended up making a decent amount of money from the EBay acquisition.
  - scottiebarnes 3y ago
    And then he failed his way up with Tesla and SpaceX, two companies which were better off without his presence. I sure I wish I was that incompetent.
  - prepend 3y ago
    I understand all that, my question was why would it matter if he was an awful coder. Or they people thought he was an awful coder. It is objectively true that he was ceo of x.com and PayPal, but neither of those positions require coding skills. I’m not defending Musk as a CEO or human or anything. I’m just curious why it matters to bring up people thought his coding sucked. Was he a good chef? Was he terrible at Mario Kart? Want to list off other random complaints as well?
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > This is an odd criticism as he was the CEO of PayPal. He was an awful CEO of X (which is why he was forced out as CEO twice, and was never CEO of PayPal), too, which may be more to the point, and the successful product X named itself for after forcing himself out the second time was acquired (and was the occasion of his brief return) after Musk’s visions had failed. > Why would it be important if he was an awful coder or not? It probably wouldn’t, if he didn’t spend his time as CEO trying to do some other job instead. It’s not always bad if your CEO is doing some other role as well as being CEO, but its a doubly bad thing if they are doing some other role and they are a poor choice for the other job.
scottiebarnes 3y ago
lol, where did you learn your Elon Musk history? He started X.com which was an online payments company. Later, X.com and Confinity Inc, would merge and rename themselves Paypal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  Except even that also implies that Elon had some say in PayPal, when in reality, Confinity had already developed what would become PayPal, including filing trademarks and such, at the merger. Musk's tenure in the newly merged company consisted of complaining incessently that he didn't like/know Solaris and Java so the working POC/prototype should be thrown away and rebuilt in Windows/ASP, for four months until the board had enough and terminated him as CEO.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >he didn't like/know Solaris and Java so the working POC/prototype should be thrown away and rebuilt in Windows/ASP, for four months until the board had enough and terminated him as CEO. Goddamn the man hasn't changed one iota in twenty years.
concordDance 3y ago
I'd love to hear what people who talk about these family connections actually think they were and where they got this idea from. I've heard it claimed hundreds of times but with no clear idea what these connections were, how they came about or what they were used for. Or even any evidence whatsoever that they existed...

warent 3y ago

This is certainly the image he would love people to have: a humble immigrant from the poor South Africa, hustling his way into the American dream. The reality is that he is from a wealthy, well-connected, post-apartheid white family. They funded his coming to Canada, the US, University, and getting first business off the ground. The reality is that he has had a silver spoon his entire life.

JVillella 3y ago
Who cares?
- afavour 3y ago
  Musk certainly does.
- JVillella 3y ago
  Let me be more specific: why do the people speaking out about his "fortunate" past care so much? As long as it didn't come from something unethical, why does it matter to you? I don't want read between the lines, but it's hard not to think it's a way for people to feel better about their own accomplishments by saying someone else had a massive head start. Whether others do or don't, we should all be trying our best, be grateful for what we have, and proud of where we came from.
  - warent 3y ago
    There are at least two big points for people to care about. The money did come from something unethical--his family was enriched by segregation; racism; apartheid. That emerald money is dirty and is likely a key reason why Elon would deny its existence. This brings us to the second thing: Elon lying about this. He has demonstrated that he is willing to lie about something this significant, which should do real damage to his credibility and trustworthiness if we are being logical and objective. What else is he willing to lie about?
    - 55555 3y ago

afavour 3y ago

You're correct that Musk isn't a "billionaire heir to an emerald mine" but his own father has said the emerald mine was real and that it helped pay Musk's living expenses at college: > Errol went as far as to say that emerald money paid for his son's move to the US, where Elon would go on to attend the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School on scholarship — with, apparently, emerald-generated cash in his pocket for living expenses. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine > when he badly needed money at the beginning of Tesla and SpaceX there was certainly no secret backup of "Emerald Mine" money That's not personal wealth, that's company investment. Just because you (or your family) doesn't have spare money kicking around to finance a space rocket company doesn't mean that you're not personally rich and able to pay for things "regular" folks cannot and have connections they don't.

deelowe 3y ago
Am I rich because I've funded a 529 plan for my kids? This story is way overblown.
- samstave 3y ago
  I funded a 529 plan with $40,000 19 years ago. It lost money. 529s are a fucking scam.
  - deelowe 3y ago
    I'm starting to feel the same, honestly. Do you know if it was just your plan or is there something where I can find more info showing how these are not smart investments?
    - samstave 3y ago
      They are not smart investments because you have no control over where the money is pointed in the plan. So if you call your advisor, and say "i want my 529 to only focus on X" they tell you that you have no control over the index and the plan will be the most conservative 50-year-old actuary data which has no fucking clue where the market is heading and then berate you for when their 529 index loses value... I was ready to pay that investment banker's family a personal visit with skills that I have accumulated over a number of decades.

coliveira 3y ago

Elon received a lot of money from his Father during his college years, and the very reason why he was in college in America is that he was bankrolled by a South African entrepreneur. Without this father he would be nowhere close to where he is.

danenania 3y ago
Can’t you say the same about anyone who grows up upper middle class or above in the US? Paying for kids’ college is pretty standard. Many middle class families do it too. There’s plenty to criticize Elon about, but this one’s a bit of a reach.
concordDance 3y ago
Note to readers: the claimed amount he received from his father is $115k split between him and his brother.

jeffwask 3y ago

> I'm not sure where this rubbish conspiracy came from Umm... his father. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine https://futurism.com/elon-musk-dad-emerald-mine

FireBeyond 3y ago
And Elon himself: https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1611861409733967872?lang=en https://twitter.com/parismarx/status/1611861409733967872?lan... > This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia. The call is coming from inside the house, Elmo.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Shhhh you're supposed to ignore all the things Elon has said in the past that directly contradict things he says now.
- jodrellblank 3y ago
  Simply prove it and get $93,000 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35920193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35920193
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    What’s hilarious is that okay, even if his dad made it up… Elon has -also- said that he and his family would stuff their pockets with money and stones that wouldn’t fit in the safe from overflowing. What next? “I only said I did it, but I never actually saw myself doing it?” At some point there is a recognition that (at least) one of two things is accurate: 1) that a mine exists, or 2) that Elon is a serial liar. Also, “get a million dogecoin”… is that before or after he hires a PI to go into your background for a little light character assassination for making him look foolish?

throw310822 3y ago

The funny thing about it is that, even if the emerald mine had been real, it would explain maybe 1/10000 of Musk's wealth. If those who talk about the "emerald mine" had managed to multiply the wealth of their family by 10000 they would consider it an incredible success.

runesofdoom 3y ago
It's a lot easier to gamble with your future when failure means a comfortable life of freedom, than when it means poverty and destitution.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  It's also significantly easier to turn $100k into infinite money in the dot com boom
fakedang 3y ago
Time value of money is a thing, you know? Back in those days, emerald mines were literally the equivalent of present-day tech IPO money. And if you read his biography by Ashlee Vance, you'll find out how the family would take vacations and travel to places by private plane.

throw93 3y ago

Because he said it himself? Why else would anyone come up with such specific source of income? Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140413112637/https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/right-stuff/elon-musk-interview-3.html https://web.archive.org/web/20140413112637/https://www.askme... His dad invested $200k at 10% at a later stage. I'm pretty sure it qualifies as rich daddy. Source: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211064937004589056 Btw Musk had little to do with the success of X. The revenue of PayPal was merely $61 million at the time Musk was fired as CEO of X.com(later PayPal).

LeifCarrotson 3y ago
There's an unimaginable gulf between buying books paying tuition to college (especially back when that was affordable), and an investment in a business that's the equivalent of about $350k today. Elon was never going to have to eat rice and beans, or go work in a cubicle for a big corp to pay the bills if any of his ventures failed.
concordDance 3y ago
> His dad invested $200k at 10% at a later stage You're reading that wrong. Elon is claiming his dad invested 10% OF a $200k round of seed funding. The actual amount was $28k. (See wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip2 )
- throw93 3y ago
  I was being more charitable to Elon by trusting what he said himself. I know the $28k number. Almost 40% of the households with college age kids earn less than 70k before taxes. How many would be able to afford to give a $28k loan to their kids? Source - https://www.statista.com/statistics/782411/parental-income-of-freshman-college-students-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/782411/parental-income-o...
  - concordDance 3y ago
    You weren't being charitable to Elon, you just either misread what was in the tweet or mistyped and claimed his dad invested $200k. Median household income is $70k, so I'd expect you'd need to be upper middle class or quite good with money to loan $28k to your kids. I certainly won't argue that the Musks were poor, but there's a very big difference between "able to help their kids through college and loan $28k" and "silver spoon trust fund kids".

dragonwriter 3y ago

> Elon’s big start came from the success of X and Paypal To which Elon contributed, AFAICT, money (both directly and in his ability to scare up capital), not management. He was forced out as CEO of X when they had no product success, X bought the company that owned PayPal and briefly brought him back as CEO then forced him out against six months later, after which X renamed itself after its one successful product, which it had acquired.

zamalek 3y ago

> if there was Emerald Mine money there wasn't much of it. You don't go to an American University as anything but a very rich African, or as a sponsorship. Source: I am a born African. I sure hope it was emerald money, else his father has some explaining to do to SARS.

concordDance 3y ago
University was much cheaper back then and he apparently got a student loan somehow.

james-redwood 3y ago

I'm a former Rhodesian (present day Zimbabwe) who moved to South Africa after things went south in Zim. For context, I'm white, so it's not like I have a racial gripe against Musk. Elon went to one of the fanciest private schools in the country's capital and lived in one of its richest suburbs. Yes, technically Boys High is a public school, but people from outside South Africa don't know what the Model C school policy was. His father was extraordinarily wealthy and if you do read interviews by both Elon and Errol, they both admit this. His mother was an international supermodel and his family was generally pretty well connected in the greater scheme of things. The entire story about him struggling during college (where he went to an Ivy League university paid for by his father) is complete bullshit. I don't dispute his ingenuity in starting Zip2 (funded by his father too by the way), but he wasn't starting from the bottom with no help - that's the grossly inaccurate part that Elon still pushes for optics and people who are too stupid or unaware of how SA works lap it up.

khazhoux 3y ago

And even if he had been fabulously wealthy since childhood, it still wouldn't discredit his accomplishments. There's how many tens of thousands of mega-rich kids right now who won't do a single thing of note with their lives?

la64710 3y ago

It does not matter if Musk had an emerald mine or not. For sure he turned a diamond mine (Twitter) to a shit pool. Do you trust him to be the CEO of your company? Ask yourself. I personally want a level headed guy.