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The people with that level of money are very few.

aikinai 3mo ago
Companies aren't funded by one person, even his. After their current round, Blue Origin will have raised more than three times as much capital as SpaceX, and SpaceX is obviously far more advanced and has already gone public. Rivian used ten times more capital to reach their first delivery and twenty times more before their IPO as compared to Tesla. It looks like it's not Musk's money making his companies successful.
- antonvs 3mo ago
  He's good at exploiting naive people's dreams.
Gareth321 3mo ago
Musk had around $180M when he founded SpaceX in 2002, and purchased Tesla in 2004. ChatGPT tells me that more than 55,000 people in the world have more wealth than this. So either people who have money choose not to make such risky investments, or they're incapable of it. Probably both. We're very lucky that someone who is both capable of building companies like this and is willing to go bankrupt doing it exists.
- antonvs 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - aikinai 3mo ago
    Without a shift to electric cars and the emergence of reusable, affordable space travel?
    - antonvs 3mo ago
      Why are those important? Now if he had revolutionized public transport, we might have something to discuss. But instead, he actively worked against that, and was a major force in getting Trump reelected. Then, after executing a pitch-perfect Hitler salute on a major public stage, he took a chainsaw to US soft power, dooming millions of children around the world to die of starvation and other preventable conditions - including Ebola! - thus getting closer to his idol’s body count. And that’s just one among many other things he did that were almost as bad, including a completely non-transparent rifling through American citizens’ personal data. No, there is nothing Musk has done that balances the equation. We’d all be better off if he had never existed.
- lookdangerous 3mo ago
  Profound. 1/55k regarding wealth really diminishes the role wealth plays.

Companies aren't funded by one person, even his. After their current round, Blue Origin will have raised more than three times as much capital as SpaceX, and SpaceX is obviously far more advanced and has already gone public. Rivian used ten times more capital to reach their first delivery and twenty times more before their IPO as compared to Tesla. It looks like it's not Musk's money making his companies successful.

antonvs 3mo ago
He's good at exploiting naive people's dreams.

Gareth321 3mo ago

Musk had around $180M when he founded SpaceX in 2002, and purchased Tesla in 2004. ChatGPT tells me that more than 55,000 people in the world have more wealth than this. So either people who have money choose not to make such risky investments, or they're incapable of it. Probably both. We're very lucky that someone who is both capable of building companies like this and is willing to go bankrupt doing it exists.

antonvs 3mo ago
[flagged]
- aikinai 3mo ago
  Without a shift to electric cars and the emergence of reusable, affordable space travel?
  - antonvs 3mo ago
    Why are those important? Now if he had revolutionized public transport, we might have something to discuss. But instead, he actively worked against that, and was a major force in getting Trump reelected. Then, after executing a pitch-perfect Hitler salute on a major public stage, he took a chainsaw to US soft power, dooming millions of children around the world to die of starvation and other preventable conditions - including Ebola! - thus getting closer to his idol’s body count. And that’s just one among many other things he did that were almost as bad, including a completely non-transparent rifling through American citizens’ personal data. No, there is nothing Musk has done that balances the equation. We’d all be better off if he had never existed.
lookdangerous 3mo ago
Profound. 1/55k regarding wealth really diminishes the role wealth plays.