The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down

[Colonel_Klinck]

I mean sure, having his money and resources for a bit would indeed be massively fun.

It wouldn't necessarily lead to long term happiness or wellbeing though (as evidenced by his recent behaviour and all his family issues etc).

For a few days, maybe even a few weeks but it would get boring really quickly and I know a few people who have loads of money and are far from happy, sadly I knew 2 millionaires who killed themselves, many would have thought they had amazing lives. People really shouldn't think money bring happiness, its solves some problems but comes with others but it won't feed your soul and you can't buy friends or companionship that is real.

 

[jigger]

For a few days, maybe even a few weeks but it would get boring really quickly and I know a few people who have loads of money and are far from happy, sadly I knew 2 millionaires who killed themselves, many would have thought they had amazing lives. People really shouldn't think money bring happiness, its solves some problems but comes with others but it won't feed your soul and you can't buy friends or companionship that is real.

Indeed, some of the best times in my life financially, have been the worse times in other ways.

 

[unwashed potato!]

i disagree that having billions wouldn't be fun. i think what most billionaires do is wrong, but imagine now having access to say 50 billion. you could literally build a whole town, drop 9 billion to help remove world hunger for a year. helping other humans in massive ways is what billionaires should be doing and would bring ridiculous amounts of joy. the trouble is billionaires seem to be come like dragons and unable to part with their gold. sure they do give to charities, but not as much as they easily could.

 

[Pho]

i disagree that having billions wouldn't be fun. i think what most billionaires do is wrong, but imagine now having access to say 50 billion. you could literally build a whole town, drop 9 billion to help remove world hunger for a year. helping other humans in massive ways is what billionaires should be doing and would bring ridiculous amounts of joy. the trouble is billionaires seem to be come like dragons and unable to part with their gold. sure they do give to charities, but not as much as they easily could.

This is something I've never really got. A good chunk of billionaires are egotistical and doing something like solving homelessness in their area would give them lots of PR and boost their ego, cement them in history and all that, yet they never seem to.

But then it's impossible to become a billionaire without taking advantage of other people (I pay you 5p to make a product I sell at £1 and pocket 95p for doing nothing kind of thing) so I guess they just don't care about others to the extreme.

E.g., Musk is apparently worth $206B ($206,000,000,000). He's 52. Let's assume he started work at 14. That's 38 years of work.

• $206,000,000,000/38 = $5,421,052,631 a year
• $5,421,052,631/52 = $104,251,012 a week
• $104,251,012/5 = $20,850,202 a day
• $20,850,202/7.5 = $2,780,026 an hour

On average clearly, but just crazy unachievable figures for anyone in the real world.

 

[Trusty]

Because the billions aren't liquid. Billionaires don't have all their billions sitting around in cash. 90% of their value is tied to the thing that made them rich in the first place, the company.

Jeff Bezos recently sold like 6m shares of Amazon, he has something like 950m shares left. He couldn't just sell all his stock, he'd tank Amazon and the rest of the market a long with it.

 

[unwashed potato!]

Because the billions aren't liquid. Billionaires don't have all their billions sitting around in cash. 90% of their value is tied to the thing that made them rich in the first place, the company.

Jeff Bezos recently sold like 6m shares of Amazon, he has something like 950m shares left. He couldn't just sell all his stock, he'd tank Amazon and the rest of the market a long with it.

Of course we get that, but it's not entirely true and they aren't stuck forever with the stock.

There are plenty ways to sell/reduce the stock their hold to get money to spend else where.

Elon is worth 200 billion. It won't be hard for him to get access to 50 billion over the next 5 years.

 

[Fubsy]

50 billion to do what?

I mean, I'd quite like to see him buy TikTok.

 

[unwashed potato!]

50 billion to do what?

I mean, I'd quite like to see him buy TikTok.

Me too actually. Seeing that brain rot app die would do the world a favour

Ah man the possibilities are endless. Imagine right now how many displaced people there are in gaza, Ukraine alone. I'd be building a whole new city for them if I had 50 billion, and another 150 behind that, plus any additional money made from stock price rises over the next 5/10 years. Name my city potatoland, give everyone jobs to help build it.

Id also be investing like crazy in my home town. Building sports centres, entrainment venues, places for kids, all free/low cost for locals.

There's no reason someone with 200 billion couldn't be a modern day king with their legacy.

I'm not denying they don't do anything, and there are some doing lots already, it's just crazy to me to see how someone like Elon has ended up with where he could have been. How many kids does he have and how few of them want to talk to him. He is unfortunate to have lost that connection as it's really telling that his own family doesn't want to know him, leaving him with just yes man and anyone that wants to use him. Is Elon died tomorrow, I don't feel he'd be leaving as good a legacy, no where near as good in fact, as he could have.

And of course he doesn't have to. But the chat is about what we'd do if in that position.

 

[Roar87]

The US Governments spends over $6 trillion a year, there isn't an amount of money Elon Musk has that can solve these grand problems people expect him to. The US Defence budget alone is around $900bn, maybe people should ask for that money to be better spent.

 

[potatolord]

i disagree that having billions wouldn't be fun. i think what most billionaires do is wrong, but imagine now having access to say 50 billion. you could literally build a whole town, drop 9 billion to help remove world hunger for a year. helping other humans in massive ways is what billionaires should be doing and would bring ridiculous amounts of joy. the trouble is billionaires seem to be come like dragons and unable to part with their gold. sure they do give to charities, but not as much as they easily could.

I'd buy OCUK forums and permaban everyone who said mean things about me in this thread.

I'd spend whatever I had left on beer and crisps.

 

[jeffk]

The US Governments spends over $6 trillion a year, there isn't an amount of money Elon Musk has that can solve these grand problems people expect him to. The US Defence budget alone is around $900bn, maybe people should ask for that money to be better spent.

Elon could buy up all of the medical debt in the US and still have $100 billion in the bank. That would have a huge impact on the lives of millions of people.

But no-one becomes a billionaire by thinking about other people. Musk really isn’t any different to Zuckerberg, Bezos or Ellison in that regard. The only difference is that he demands to be the main character constantly and so invites criticism.

 

[Roar87]

Elon could buy up all of the medical debt in the US and still have $100 billion in the bank. That would have a huge impact on the lives of millions of people.

But no-one becomes a billionaire by thinking about other people. Musk really isn’t any different to Zuckerberg, Bezos or Ellison in that regard. The only difference is that he demands to be the main character constantly and so invites criticism.

I think Elon Musk is doing a lot for humans in general through his innovative technology companies. I think if you were to consider who could do more for humanity with their money, Elon would be pretty low on your list. I mean there are literal trust fund babies who spend their entire lives snorting coke and buying expensive clothes and cars on the back of wealth they've had no involvement in creating, Hunter Biden for example, yet people really go off on Elon Musk - a man helping develop technology that could allow paraplegics to communicate and walk, with a network of satellites providing Ukraine with internet during a war, etc.

 

[jeffk]

I think Elon Musk is doing a lot for humans in general through his innovative technology companies. I think if you were to consider who could do more for humanity with their money, Elon would be pretty low on your list.

I don’t think any billionaire should have a clean conscious but you’re right. There’s billionaires who are smart enough to stay out of the limelight who are doing far worse things than Musk.

 

[StriderX]

The idiom 'hiding in plain sight' comes to mind which seems to have worked very well for Musk versus say Bill Gates who constantly has the smoothbrains typing out whole books about his microchipping conspiracy even though Musk is literally doing it and they have nothing to say about it.

 

[unwashed potato!]

Jesus that's a lot of flights!

Elon Musk’s Air Travel in 2018 https://imgur.com/gallery/x4YwWVO

And he only visited England twice!

If anyone knows how to embed much appreciated

 

[dowie]

Elon could buy up all of the medical debt in the US and still have $100 billion in the bank. That would have a huge impact on the lives of millions of people.

But no-one becomes a billionaire by thinking about other people. Musk really isn’t any different to Zuckerberg, Bezos or Ellison in that regard. The only difference is that he demands to be the main character constantly and so invites criticism.

He doesn't have 100 billion in the bank now. People do seem to have some notions like this when it comes to very wealthy people; that no one needs to be a billionaire say and so should have cashed in and given away a bunch of their cash but their billionaire status is the reflection of their business success, that they're billionaires perhaps indicates they've got a pretty productive use for their capital in the first place. Zuckerberg could have cashed out of Facebook when he became a billionaire, not bought Instagram or WhatsApp and faded into obscurity by now. But now he's been able to build it up into something bigger and better and he's able to pledge an even bigger amount to charity.

 

[unwashed potato!]

He doesn't have 100 billion in the bank now. People do seem to have some notions like this when it comes to very wealthy people; that no one needs to be a billionaire say and so should have cashed in and given away a bunch of their cash but their billionaire status is the reflection of their business success, that they're billionaires perhaps indicates they've got a pretty productive use for their capital in the first place. Zuckerberg could have cashed out of Facebook when he became a billionaire, not bought Instagram or WhatsApp and faded into obscurity by now. But now he's been able to build it up into something bigger and better and he's able to pledge an even bigger amount to charity.

all true of course. i gathered the conversation was more a loose version of what they should/could be doing.

you could argue a bit easier about the zuck, but elon is 54 now, at some point this whole "don't tax me or expect me to give any away as i'm building up my fortune to do bigger things" feels like eventually they should start doing those things surely. 30 something zuck i could give a pass for now.

it remind me of something i heard along the lines of jeff bezos ex wife gave away half her billions during covid as she said it was way too much and wanted to make use of it better, but due to stock price increase, she gave away half, and ended up richer then when she started!

 

[dowie]

you could argue a bit easier about the zuck, but elon is 54 now, at some point this whole "don't tax me or expect me to give any away as i'm building up my fortune to do bigger things" feels like eventually they should start doing those things surely. 30 something zuck i could give a pass for now.

He did do those things, I mean he could have gone into obscurity after X.com/PayPal but now we've got SpaceX and Tesla and that in turn has prompted plenty of investment into electric vehicles and self-driving tech as other manufacturers don't want to be left behind; that whole area could otherwise have been years behind where it is currently.

SpaceX now provides satellite internet around the world, soon we'll potentially have the option of using Starlink via phones even and their launchers are pretty exciting; what they've achieved (arguably with far greater efficiency than typical government-run projects) re: vertical landing etc.. has been great.

 

[unwashed potato!]

He did do those things, I mean he could have gone into obscurity after X.com/PayPal but now we've got SpaceX and Tesla and that in turn has prompted plenty of investment into electric vehicles and self-driving tech as other manufacturers don't want to be left behind; that whole area could otherwise have been years behind where it is currently.

SpaceX now provides satellite internet around the world, soon we'll potentially have the option of using Starlink via phones even and their launchers are pretty exciting; what they've achieved (arguably with far greater efficiency than typical government-run projects) re: vertical landing etc.. has been great.

I notice you didn't include his free speech efforts into that

 

[arknor]

It wouldn't necessarily lead to long term happiness or wellbeing though (as evidenced by his recent behaviour and all his family issues etc).

seems to be more of an Elon problem than a money one

i disagree that having billions wouldn't be fun. i think what most billionaires do is wrong, but imagine now having access to say 50 billion. you could literally build a whole town, drop 9 billion to help remove world hunger for a year. helping other humans in massive ways is what billionaires should be doing and would bring ridiculous amounts of joy. the trouble is billionaires seem to be come like dragons and unable to part with their gold. sure they do give to charities, but not as much as they easily could.

They don't get that rich by being nice generous people, and when they do donate they send it to some crappy charity that wastes 70% of it on an advertising budget and lazy fat cats

It's not like the 1800s where some guy is going to build a city park or housing estates for its workers.