Elon Musk has been a tech and financial Icon for a good decade now. Many people do not know that he was one of the original co-founders of Paypal which allowed him to earn several hundred million dollars which was what he used to fund Tesla in the early days. He used most of this money to fund Tesla to the point where he was beginning to use the last of his wealth he had acquired from Paypal.
Thankfully for him, it worked out tremendously well and Tesla has become a roaring success.
Musk is now the founder of Tesla, Space X, Neuralink and The Boring Company. Tesla, his flagship company produces electric cars that have been well received by the public. A fashionable car with a fashionable price tag. SpaceX, a space exploration company is his mission to explore space and send people there, more on this later. Neuralink, is a ‘matrix like technology’ that is a bit transhumanist and has people curious but also skeptical of the potential downsides, risks and health implications of such a hardware technology interfering with your brain, and rightfully so.
The boring company produced the flamethrower that went viral online and sold out almost instantly but is also associated with Elon’s other transportation projects such as tunnels and the hyperloop. Recently, Hertz, the car rental company placed an order to buy 100,000 Tesla vehicles which caused Elon Musk’s net worth to soar up to $40 billion dollars in a single day, even topping $300 billion dollars (total) at one point. He’s publicly the richest man alive surpassing Gates, Bezos and others.
Elon Musk’s Net Worth Explained in A Nutshell
Musk’s net worth is comprised mainly of Tesla stock. As the car company continues to excel and stock continues to soar his net worth rises with it. But to grasp the amount of wealth that he has ($289 Billion approximate) we have to break down first, what is a billion dollars?
How Much Money is $1 Billion US Dollars Truly?
One billion dollars simply for a frame of reference is $1 Million dollars 1,000 times. It’s 1,000 million dollars! That’s a lot of money. Most people do not imagine having $1 million dollars in their lifetime let alone $1 million dollars 1,000 times over.
So how much is $289 billion dollars? Elon Musk’s approximate net worth. That would be 289,000 Million dollars. That is a jaw dropping staggering amount of cash. Imagine with me for a minute how to put this into perspective. Say you have $289,000, and this is everything you have. Spending $1,000 at a time is a bit but it doesn’t really change your overall amount of cash too much if you spend $1,000 say 10 times a year.
Elon’s $1 billion dollars is equivalent to your $1,000, if you have $289,000. It doesn’t even come close. It’s hard to fathom the scale of wealth that he now has.
The Controversy Surrounding Elon Musk
As the richest man in the world people do have doubts naturally. Tesla is well received but some of his other projects are questionable. Neuralink aims to create a machine-brain interface that plugs you into the ‘matrix’ or digital world even deeper. Many argue that this interface is biologically harmful as the electromagnetic affects of this can be very harmful and detrimental to the brain. There is no research surrounding the safety or efficacy of quite literally hardwiring your brain to a computer or what it will do.
His SpaceX project has received criticism also. The idea of space exploration seems quite meaningless to everyday people who live here on earth. We have plastic gathering in our oceans that is so bad that fish are now eating it. We have homeless populations in large cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York that are growing worse by the day. Why explore space and spend billions on space when the earth needs a lot of help and support? Both humanity and the environment could use Elon’s innovative mind to solve these challenges.
Bezos and Gates have received similar criticism. Why are billionaires so invested in ‘their ideas’ still when they have hundreds of billions of dollars? They could do so much for humans and the earth. Clean water, food and shelter come before all else. In fact, the majority of diseases could be wiped out in 2nd and 3rd world countries with guess what? Nope, not vaccines. Simply clean water that is free of any pathogens. When clean water is supplied people in these countries and communities can rise up and thrive.
Challenging Billionaires To Do More Giving And Less ‘Investing’
During the coronavirus pllandemic the wealth of the wealthiest in the world grew tremendously while small business owners and everyday people lost their income and jobs. Now, so many people are dependent on the Government for survival as these mandates unequivocally harm small business owners and everyday people yet favor the billionaires in positions of commercial power. How long will people stand by and support, praise and worship these billionaires while the rest of humanity suffers? I for one challenge billionaires to focus less on wealth accumulation and more impact. Less on doubling or tripling their portfolio and more on doubling or tripling their impact.