“It’s just paper wealth, he’s just leveraging paper.”
That paper bought Twitter. $44 billion, partly borrowed against pledged shares. And here’s the trick, loans aren’t income so that spending power arrives untaxed. In 2018 his federal income tax bill was $0.
That’s the whole game. The wealth is “paper” when you ask him to pay taxes on it, and very real when he’s buying the world’s town square with it.
Also, he didn’t found Tesla. Eberhard and Tarpenning did. He bought in, then won the “founder” title in a lawsuit settlement.
Nobody said the rockets aren’t real. We said no single human should hold more wealth than Sweden produces in a year. You didn’t answer that.
Sit down.
It blows my mind how many people are complaining that Elon became the first trillionaire.
First, most of it is paper wealth tied to equity in his companies. He could not turn it into real cash without dumping shares, which would crash the price and shrink his net worth massively.
“But he can borrow against his shares.” Sure he can. That does not make him richer. A loan still has to be paid back, the shares stay pledged as collateral the entire time, and if the price drops he gets margin called. He’s just leveraging paper.
You would be much richer holding $1 million in cash than owning 25% of a company worth $4 million, even though both equal $1 million on paper.
Second, come on. He actually changed the world. A lot of these people complaining drive electric cars because they care about emissions. Those cars would not be mainstream if Elon had not built Tesla. Millions of people in rural and remote areas have internet because of Starlink. SpaceX is the only reason NASA is not still paying Russia to send astronauts to the ISS.
You can hate the man. You can hate his politics. But pretending he is not one of the most consequential entrepreneurs of our lifetime is just dishonest.