> Why is Musk allowed to be worth half a trillion dollars again?
Because he founded a company that turned into PayPal, single-handedly launched the Western EV revolution and single-handedly secured American access to space. He's been a fuckup for the last few years. But he's "allowed" to be worth a lot because if he were doing what he's doing elsewhere, he'd facilitate a multi-trillion dollar wealth transfer from America to that place.
>Because he founded a company that turned into PayPal
No he didn't. He co-founded (with several other people) a company that merged with a company founded over a year before (that he had no involvement in) which eventually became PayPal. He didn't found jack shit on his own.
> single-handedly launched the Western EV revolution
Say what now? Are we talking about Tesla? You know Toyota had a working hybrid on the market in 2000, correct? The West was already well on its way to electric vehicles when Musk bought himself a board seat at Tesla.
>single-handedly secured American access to space.
Americans had not only already gone to space, but had landed on the moon over 2 years before Musk was born. Yes, you read that right - he was quite literally not even conceived when Americans had not only sent rockets into space, but literally went to and landed on a moon.
> But he's "allowed" to be worth a lot because if he were doing what he's doing elsewhere, he'd facilitate a multi-trillion dollar wealth transfer from America to that place.
I think this is the critical point. It's kinda the foundation of why all extremely rich people are "allowed" to get so rich.
For the rest, not so much. Partly:
Much as I was impressed with him successfully turning the disaster that was Eberhard and Tarpenning's era into a viable business, I would not describe "noticing and fixing Eberhard and Tarpenning's mistakes" as "single-handedly" launching anything. The booster version is the opposite side of the same wrong coin as those who insist Musk was worthless because Eberhard and Tarpenning came first.
SpaceX similarly, for all I'm impressed by how he's used his charisma and vision and drive to get people organised, he's definitely not "single handed" on this.
But also, my understanding is that for valuations such as Tesla's share price, the "what it should be" is usually based on what they're likely to return in the next 20 years or so. Tesla's stock price is obviously disconnected from the business returns, at best speculation based on what Musk might be able to organise people to do eventually, and given he has been, as you say, "a fuckup for the last few years", the expected return for the Musk group should be lower, not higher.
> let’s complete what we cede fuck-it-up worth to: Single-handedly secured the outcome of an election because he’s worth a lot, then, he’s allowed to be DOGE and fuck more shit up just because he’s worth a lot
This strikes me as more of an indictment of money in politics.
Musk didn't need half a trillion dollars to influence the election and trash our government. He needed a few hundred million. We should be able to create a system where a man, even a very rich man, cannot rent the most powerful position in the history of humanity with a few hundred million dollars.
> But he's "allowed" to be worth a lot because if he were doing what he's doing elsewhere, he'd facilitate a multi-trillion dollar wealth transfer from America to that place.
I’m not talking about taxes, I’m talking about raw wealth creation. Musk is rewarded in part so America stays attractive to the next potential Musk. We could double his taxes and that message would still hold.
would a 499 billion cap make you happy? 100 Billion?
It would require substantial punitive taxes and penalties to prevent this accumulation. Would founders and investors still develop in the USA if their upside were curtailed? Would Musk Found spaceX if they were not allowed to profit from it?
Also, it is not as simple as taxing profits. Almost all of this value is simply equity in controlled companies. What is the mechanism here? If you are too successful, the government seizes your company? Dont you think that would be disruptive to investment and growth?
So you were just spitballing things you dont even think will work? Neither of them seem even remotely close to sufficient, either alone or in combination in preventing another Musk. 2% seems irrelevant and he would probably be even richer if prevented from buying twitter due to the ban on collateralized lending.
If we are just spitballing, I think we should charge Billionaires a nickel every time they tie their shoes, and a dime on Sunday.
One option that might actually work is following a more feudal model, where the POTUS/Trump executes or disappears any oligarch that accumulates more than X amount, as assessed by the executive.
My actually preferred option is to simply get the money out of politics.
50% per year might do it, but I think that is well into market distortion territory where there will be consequences. Also remember that at this scale it isn't taking money, it is seizing control of companies.
But yes, we can both agree to defer to the experts and not bother trying to understand or think through the consequences of our policy beliefs.
> Also remember that at this scale it isn't taking money, it is seizing control of companies.
Nah. Zuck has "founder's stock" that gets 10x the voting power. He owns something like 13% of FB but >50% of the voting power.
> But yes, we can both agree to defer to the experts and not bother trying to understand or think through the consequences of our policy beliefs.
"We should have a wealth tax" and "the wealth tax should be set to exactly 3.28%" are very different things. I believe a wealth tax would be beneficial; I also believe that setting the amount of said tax requires some domain experts.
Yeah. No single individual needs that much money. especially in this day and age where politicians are cheap as fuck to buy and the markets will reward any and all regulatory capture in the name of increasing short-term value of stock....while not giving a damn about the long-term ramifications of how it perverts our entire economic system.
>100 Billion?
That would too. Let me ask you - if you had $99 billion USD, would you whine that you don't have $100 billion, or would you, y'know, go out and use the money to enjoy your life and take care of people?
I know which I'd do. Hint: I'd be extremely fucking happy with what I'd have and I'd do all I could to spread the wealth around as far as I could. I wouldn't whine, I'd be overjoyed that I'd have more wealth than all but approximately 30 people on the planet.
The only "work" I'd do at that point is to figure out which diseases could likely be eradicated with enough money, and figure out how to give enough money to get it done. Gates, for all his faults, did pretty much just that. His money kicked malaria's ass.
>Also, it is not as simple as taxing profits. Almost all of this value is simply equity in controlled companies. What is the mechanism here? If you are too successful, the government seizes your company? Dont you think that would be disruptive to investment and growth?
It most certainly is quite easy.
If you have over a certain number in net worth (say, $100 billion), you can't take out loans against your stock portfolio - you have to sell stock or assets. The loans-against-portfolio system was designed to help middle class individuals buy homes, not to help centibillionaires buy $500mm yachts. If you are the sole founder of a multi-trillion dollar organization, your business expenses should cover quite literally anything you could ever need.
The mechanism isn't the government taking away a company, and it's certainly not disruptive to investment nor growth. In fact, as a founder myself, I'd take it as a badge of honor if the government came in and said "hey bro you are now worth a hundred billion dollars, you've won capitalism, go enjoy time with your friends and family". My investors, who invested small amounts of capital at a valuation in the low single digit millions, would be thrilled at a 100 billion dollar exit. That's nearly a 100,000x multiple ROI. If you, say, as an investor, dropped $10,000 on an investment. It gave you a return, after a decade, of 100,000x, or a billion dollars. Your reaction to that would be to complain that the government is discouraging and disrupting growth?
> The loans-against-portfolio system was designed to help middle class individuals buy homes, not to help centibillionaires buy $500mm yachts. If you are the sole founder of a multi-trillion dollar organization, your business expenses should cover quite literally anything you could ever need.
This is nonsense. It wasn't "designed" to help the middle class. Portfolios are clear collateral assets and a natural backstop that doesnt need a "designer". It will arise in any financial system that allows free contracting and doesnt explicitly prohibit it.
> In fact, as a founder myself, I'd take it as a badge of honor if the government came in and said "hey bro you are now worth a hundred billion dollars, you've won capitalism, go enjoy time with your friends and family...".
This is such a contrived example it isnt worth discussing. The realistic outcome is the government taking it and giving you nothing. We aren't discussing the government "buying" anything.
> He's "allowed to be worth half a trillion dollars" because we don't tax him enough
On a technical level, sure. On a practical level, he'd still be fabulously rich and powerful, and the comment you're responding to would be asking why he's allowed to be worth hundreds of billions of whatever.
The problem isn't that Musk was "allowed" to become wealthy. It's that a trivial fraction of that wealth let him corrupt not only himself, but also his government.
Paypal kicked Musk out for being annoying and useless and wanting to implement bad ideas. He bought Tesla after it already put out its fan-favorite car. To say he contributed anything is questionable, and to say anything he has done is revolutionary is laughable.
Repeated success along multiple businesses is an objective measure. There is a chance he lucked into paypal, tesla, spaceX, and starlink, but it seems reasonable to assume he is contributing (and detracting simultaneously) something to score 4 successess, even if that is just hiring the right people and making big bets.
These are also hard businesses, dealing with physics, chemistry, and regulations. Unlike SaaS businesses one spins up on cloud services. Which lends some more credence to not just being lucky.
Obviously, he has a reprehensible agenda, but there is clearly a case to be made about his ability to execute.
this is a bad framing. he did put in a lot of work, he did mercilessly churn through engineers to get results, cajoled various power-brokers to get subsidies and financing necessary to keep on keeping on.
he is the ultimate right place right time person, managed to turn innovative historically doomed-to-fail ventures into very highly valued mature(ish) businesses.
it's unlikely that someone without his micromanagerial madness could have done these. (and of course in a better world he would have gotten help, employees wouldn't have been fired on a whim, and the market wouldn't reward liars. not to mention that ideally the market would price in the consequences of enriching someone with so loose morals.)
I like that he didn’t do any of those things. Like you are mixing up “Elon Musk the guy that spends 18 hours a day tweeting and retweeting various race grievances” and “Elon Musk as envisioned by Marvel Studios in 2010’s superhero film Iron Man 2”. None of the characters or events in that movie were real. That was all made up by writers so they could sell DVDs and 1/6th scale limited edition figurines.
Because he founded a company that turned into PayPal, single-handedly launched the Western EV revolution and single-handedly secured American access to space. He's been a fuckup for the last few years. But he's "allowed" to be worth a lot because if he were doing what he's doing elsewhere, he'd facilitate a multi-trillion dollar wealth transfer from America to that place.