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Originally Posted by SebC
Isn't his wealth mostly Tesla stock? Not exactly capital (in the sense of an asset that improves productivity). If he sold it for capital then someone else would be down capital and up Tesla stock.
This is why I call the stock market imaginary wealth. It's not imaginary for the person who owns it but for the actual entire economy what matters is how many factories there are, how educated the workforce is, what technologies have been invented, productivity etc. not what the stock market claims all companies are worth.
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The wealth is very real. Like any billionaire, he can secure massive loans against the value of his stocks, and use that money to live as extravagantly as he wants. And of course, buy elections.
But let's say he liquidates his entire $400B fortune. His pile of cash would not be $400B high; it would only probably be a fraction of that. But the fact remains - he's obscenely wealthy. And in a world where money buys power and influence, it quickly becomes a problem for the rest of society.
My view of billionaires would be a lot rosier if they, in a very serious way, put their money toward making the world a better place. And while you can point to things like the development of EVs, Starlink, and battery technology as examples of Elon doing good for the world, the fact remains that he could be doing more, but he chooses not to.
Sure, Tesla has developed some nice things. I'll give him credit for that (even though it was actually Tesla employees who developed them, but we'll overlook that for now).
But how much of his extraordinary wealth has he invested in green tech companies other than Tesla? None, as far as I can tell.
EVs run on electricity, but much of the electricity used to run them still comes largely from the burning of fossil fuels. And that's where my frustration comes from. We need to be much further along in the transition than where we're currently at. Climate change is becoming a larger problem with each passing year, and the longer we wait to stop burning fossil fuels, the more our ability to determine our future will slip away from us.
Look, the Earth is a ball of almost limitless energy. The fact that we, as a species, aren't WAY further along in finding ways to tap into it is... not only a huge shame, it's a full blown outrage. I mean for pete's sake, the Kola Superdeep was dug by the Russians in the 70s and 80s. Don't sit there and tell me that humanity needed to wait for 2020s technology to get on with figuring this stuff out. We should have been doing WAY more research and technological development since the 60s, but we didn't make it a priority, thanks to O&G lies and propaganda.
So every time I see Elon and his companies spending a kajillion dollars on rockets, tunnels, and turning Twitter into a rightwing free-speech-for-me-but-not-for-thee echo chamber, I think to myself wouldn't the money be better spent investing in startups that are trying to advance solar, wind, geothermal, and other clean forms of energy?
Elon talks about the world needing to transition away from fossil fuels. So his decision to back Mr. Fossil Fuel in the presidential election was a... rather strange choice. But hey, who knows, if by "drill baby drill" Trump actually meant drill for geothermal, his presidency might not be so bad after all...
lol. What are the odds on that though? 1 in 400 billion?
Anyways, kidding aside...
Having spoken with the top geothermal experts in Canada, what has become very clear to me is that the only impediment toward the rapid advancement of geothermal energy availability and technology is a striking lack of funding and investment. The government of Canada recently doled out a $90 million investment in Eavor for the continued development of their closed loop technologies, and the Alberta govt has pledged some money as well. But several other
projects have been waiting for years with their hands out and have received very little or in some cases nothing. It's FRUSTRATING AS HECK to see what billionaire priorities seem to be. Why are NONE of them stepping up and helping to advance stuff like this? I guess no one is willing to invest in anything that doesn't offer a likely profitable return. What ever happened to doing something for the benefit of the world instead of just your own finances? Sigh...
The world's billionaires hold an estimated $14 trillion in wealth. Crazy to think that none of them are willing to take a small personal hit to help a good cause.