Elon Musk Overtakes Bill Gates To Grab World's Second-Richest Ranking (bloomberg.com) 144
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Elon Musk's year of dizzying ascents hit a new apex Monday as the Tesla co-founder passed Bill Gates to become the world's second-richest person. The 49-year-old entrepreneur's net worth soared $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion, driven by yet another surge in Tesla's share price. Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world's 500 richest people. In January he ranked 35th.
His advance up the wealth ranks has been driven largely by the electric automaker, whose market value hit $500 billion after Tesla shares rallied further on Tuesday. About three-quarters of his net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. Musk's milestone marks only the second time in the index's eight-year history that Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates has ranked lower than number two. He held the top spot for years before being bumped by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in 2017.
His advance up the wealth ranks has been driven largely by the electric automaker, whose market value hit $500 billion after Tesla shares rallied further on Tuesday. About three-quarters of his net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. Musk's milestone marks only the second time in the index's eight-year history that Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates has ranked lower than number two. He held the top spot for years before being bumped by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in 2017.
News value? (Score:5, Informative)
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Insanely rich person gets richer. Whatever.
While writing this comment, numerous people died because of poverty.
Millions of people die due to poverty related conditions because of people who own countries, not because of people whose companies have high market capitalizations.
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And illness like COVID-19 & SARS-CoV-2!
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For each billion gained by one person, there need to exist many underpaid other persons.
Re: News value? (Score:5, Interesting)
For most people a Tesla is still well outside their price point. So if he got rich selling Teslas, then he did so by selling to other wealthy people. Out of all the super wealthy, this guy seems to be one of the few that got rich actually engineering and manufacturing something.
For example, take Zuckerfuck. What did he manufacture? He created the worlds most useful spying engine where people line up to hand over sensitive information of their most private affairs. Then he sells your data, your identity, to the highest bidder. People upload facial recognition samples almost daily and he is the one auctioning it off.
Take Gates, here is a guy that had a vision where you never get to own anything, you merely rent it for the rest of your life. If you find yourself on their bad side, for whatever reason, they simply deny you access to do business. We have this guy to thank for phasing out movies and games you buy, replacing it with â licensing rights â you purchase instead. At one time he did bring about a few OSs. He also was infamous for several mafia tricks to acquire multiple hardware companies back in the 90s. As well as other mafia tricks to deliberately kill companies in markets where MS really had no interest in competing in anyway. But his biggest achievement was his Life as a Service vision, whereby everything you do is at a fee. Talk about your dystopian society where once you cannot produce income, your life is immediately shut off.
So while Musk is becoming super rich, he did it pushing the laws of physics in his designs. Space X, semi-Autonomous cars, hyperloop, EV that are becoming more than a novelty, industrial power grid batteries, perhaps a Mars Colony or two. He isnt just selling your private information and buying yet another private island with a fallout shelter and 30yr of sustainable necessities.
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For most people a Tesla is still well outside their price point.
The Tesla is bang on the *average* new car price. It is slightly bent to the premium at best thanks to some high end cars pulling the average above the median. I get it, "most" people still counts as 51% but your post comes across as shadily dishonest even if technically accurate.
Re: News value? (Score:2)
Most people buy cars in the price point of a Camry or Rav4. Thats generally why the mid level Camry is one of the most sold cars every year. That puts it cars in the 24k to 30k price range. Who the hell signs up for a $600/mo car payment??
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The most popular vehicle sold in the US is the Ford F-series pickup truck which has an average MSRP of ~$35k.
https://www.edmunds.com/most-p... [edmunds.com]
A Toyota Camry has trims with MSRP exceeding $35k, so that’s not as cheap as you might think either. The M3 is not a base trim model. The point is, a lot of people can afford to buy cars in the mid-$30k price range, if it is something they want.
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I have no clue where you live but someone is bending you over and fucking you in the ass if you are paying $35k for a camry..
https://www.toyota.com/camry/ [toyota.com]
even the XLE hybrid is $32k .. the regular XLE is $29k
but what you mostly see on the road is the SE and LE
When you go to a car lot, what you see is what is generally being sold. To be honest I have never seen a pickup sold for less than 40k.. but I dont put pickups and cars in the same category. Considering, with a few exceptions, you are looking at a 2 se
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For most people, new cars are outside their price point. More than two thirds of all car sales in the US are used cars.
What? (Score:3)
> For each billion gained by one person, there need to exist many underpaid other persons.
Um, what? You think that if I go in my garage and build a table today (producing wealth), that somehow requires you to spend your day piling rocks, working without producing anything?
Maybe you could think about things a bit more and improve your comment just enough to get to "wrong". Because right now your comment just plain makes no sense whatsoever.
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If the people working Musk building rockets could make more money and be happier without Musk, THEY WOULD DO SO.
They work with Musk because he brings something that the table that they value. They'd rather work with Musk than not.
You're implying that anyone who doesn't run their own business is a moron, that they could and should run their own business instead of working with people like Musk who make the whole operation more effective. That's extremely insulting to the vast majority of Americans. It's also
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The pollution example you provide counters your point though, as you apparently can become a billionaire by producing electric cars.
Well I guess explains it (Score:3)
You're actually convinced that you don't build wealth by - by building wealth.
Well, that explains why you're broke.
If you ever get tired of being broke, even though complaining about it *is*fun, here's something I learned, a tip from a guy who is getting wealthly, in case you ever decide you want to:
You do in fact build wealth by - building wealth.
Linus took all your money? Berners-Lee? (Score:3)
Tim Berners-Lee has as much money as he wants.
(Ya know, the guy who invented the web).
Linus Torvalds aint hurting. (That's the guy who wrote the OS kernel in your phone, and gave it to you for free, just wrote it for fun.
Did Berners-Lee come take your dog and sell it? No, Berners-Lee, like everyone who builds wealth, did so by building wealth - by creating a lot of goodness. That's how you get wealthly, by doing something that a lot of people like a lot, so they pay you for it.
You don't get people rushing
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If someone's plan is to take money from poor people, they won't get rich that way. They'll discover that works about as well as trying to take all the apples from a oak tree.
Plenty of slumlords have gotten wealthy by basically stealing from the poor.
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Betcha can't name one.
On the other hand, some jerk is now done being president got rich building hotels with GOLD-PLATED fixtures. Because rich people have more money than poor people, surprisingly.
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Ps - brother, I've been homeless, living in a vacant lot behind the Target store. Now I'm trying to tell you how we stopped being broke and are now financially comfortable, how you can stop having to worry about money.
All I can do is tell you what works, I can't force you to listen. It's up to you if you want your life to better, or if you're going to angrily insist on continuing to get deeper into the hole. There's a wise choice here and a foolish choice. Up to you which way you go.
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I agree, but would add that it is never to early to make them as well.
That said, I think you are speaking to those that have already made bad choices, so I yield.
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> That said, I think you are speaking to those that have already made bad choices, so I yield.
I'm fairly confident we've all made choices which we no longer wish to repeat. :). Remember that one girl you dated?
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Read up on the history of these guys - the story below is only the latest part of their saga. They've stolen from the poor as well as from the government.
https://nypost.com/2019/04/11/... [nypost.com]
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I see that story indicates they are bad guys. ... :)
I also see that they got money from the government, with help of the Democrat Party counsel - because poor people don't have money. The government spends a LOT of money. Of course technically the government is spending money they don't have, but anyway
I haven't yet read more than the story you linked, but I'll say this:
Sure of you look hard enough you'll be able to find ONE crook that stole from broke people. If you look out the window as you drive down t
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You can’t become a billionaire “simply” building tables, but there are more ways than you might think to start a successful business. See for example,
https://www.inc.com/magazine/2... [inc.com]
If you’re interested in entrepreneurship I recommend listening to How I Built This by Guy Raz on NPR.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/5... [npr.org]
Some really interesting stories of ordinary people starting businesses that became successful, eventually.
Re: What? (Score:2)
Re: News value? (Score:5, Informative)
People also misunderstand how Bezos, Musk, Gates, etc. are valued. Much of their wealth is not "real" yet, it's stock in companies so it's Potential Wealth, not actual Wealth. They can't sell the stock unless someone is willing and able to buy it.
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Even if there's always a buyer for stocks there's never a buyer for these stocks at that price, and at that volume. That's how stocks work. They lose their value when they get sold in bulk.
Ever wonder why hostile takeovers cost so much more than the normal stock price at the day it's announced?
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Which people are. I don't understand this argument. Yes, their money is mostly tied up in their own companies (although not exclusively - Bezos's Google stock alone would qualify him for the Fortune 400). But that wealth can definitely be sold.
The only major issue would be people thinking he was selling Amazon stock because of
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No. Wealth isn't a fixed or finite thing, which has to be carved up. Yes, you can get more by taking from someone else but you can also get more by creating more. Nearly all of the richest people got that way by creating wealth, not by taking it.
When a carpenter uses his hands to turn a tree into a beautiful piece of furniture, that is creating wealth. When a businessman hires the carpenter, then goes to the banker who capitalises the future lifetime output of the carpenter's work into bonds which their friend at the central bank then buys with printed money so that the banker and entrepreneur can buy up all the houses, farms and factories, and force the carpenter into a form of indentured servitude, it's hard to believe that either the banker or b
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One scenario is a CEO fires a bunch of well paid American workers, opens up a new factory in China, cuts labor costs by 90%, and pockets the difference. Part of his future earnings come directly from other people and made them poorer.
Another scenario is Elon Musk starts a new company making a new product, opens a factory in America, pays good wages, and also makes a lot of money from selling the product. The primary effect is that other car companies can't grow as quickly because their market share is decli
Re: News value? (Score:2)
How do you explain the fact that poverty worldwide has fallen both as relative and absolute number faster than the most optimistic prognosis?
Check the state of the world:
https://www.gapminder.org/ [gapminder.org]
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Whoever told you that economics was a zero-sum game lied to you. You should go back to them and ask them why they did that.
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The billionaires were sitting on billions of extra dollars they aren't using and obviously didn't earn through their own labor that could've saved the ~15m people who die of starvation each year in capitalist economies?
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The billionaires were sitting on billions of extra dollars they aren't using and obviously didn't earn through their own labor that could've saved the ~15m people who die of starvation each year in capitalist economies?
You do understand the their money isn't in wheel borrows in their garage right? It's stock in their companies. Net worth. If they sell all that stock, they lose control of their company. Get an education.
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They can effectively spend that money by borrowing against it, and the debt is paid off by selling the stock when they die. This is how billionaires normally spend (relatively) large amounts of money. YOU get an education.
Re: News value? (Score:2)
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Of course you can borrow against stock, again this is a very common move in billionaires' personal finance:
https://www.businesstimes.com.... [businesstimes.com.sg]
http://www.blglobal.co.uk/Feat... [blglobal.co.uk]
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Yes it is. And if it was in cash, it would still be net worth. What's your point?
One, not as true as you would think, since different classes on stock have different voting rights. Hell, some companies are set up so the founders never can lose control if they maintain at least a single share.
Two, why is it a good thing to let them have unbridled control? Small stockholders have rights too.
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To be fair, there are quite a few obscenely rich people that have decided they don't want to be the richest stiff in the graveyard, so they have pledged to put that wealth to work for society instead of producing the next few generations of spoiled rotten piece of shit pseudo-celebrities that are basically famous for being famous.
Gates is doing some pretty remarkable work to solve problems that are not sexy, but are real problems that affect millions of people every single day - like how to provide clean wa
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With that level of logic, why do you need the billionaires' money to save the starving people? Why not just volunteer the labor of a bunch of people to feed the poor people? And you should start with your own labor, of course.
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I prefer the logic of using excess billions of dollars stuffed into economic oubliettes over volunteering the efforts of people who are already working full-time to scrape together an existence, that's correct.
"The Richest Man in the World: A parable ... (Score:2)
.. about structural unemployment and a basic income"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
"A parable about robotics, abundance, technological change, unemployment, happiness, and a basic income."
By me from 2010. And related directly to your point of "they actively try to improve AI to the point they can do without such peasants altogether..."
Nice to finally see politicians like Andrew Yang getting it; see also Yang's 2018 book: "The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Univer
100,300 million $$$ (Score:2)
He's earned 100,300 million $$$ this year and we're only in November!
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And he could lose all of it before the end of the year too. That's how liquidity works, after all.
Mania (Score:4, Informative)
Tesla's market cap could eventually be justified if and when it displaces all other major car manufacturers.
Maybe that will eventually happen in a decade or two, but to price them as if it already has happened is pretty crazy. Especially considering that the other major car manufacturers haven't suffered a major market cap drop yet too. The auto market has not recently doubled in size.
Tesla's battery business certainly justifies additional value, but they don't own all their tech and production and they will face stiff competition in that business. Their solar energy business is marginal at best.
I think what has happened here is that many people have decided that Tesla is a tech company like Google, Microsoft, FB, Apple, Amazon, etc., and decided that, therefore, they deserve to be similarly priced as those companies. The reality though is that cars are hard and expensive to produce, especially relative to software or even electronics. So, it will be very difficult for Tesla to produce the eye popping profits those other companies do.
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I think it's because investors who don't know anything about the auto industry or automotive technology think that Tesla is going to become an automotive megacorporation at least on par with GM or VW AG, judging by how they've done so far. Telsa had a lot of success in a short time because they caught the big auto manufacturers sleeping on EVs, but they're awake now, and Tesla will soon be a small fish in a big pond. There's nothing too special about Tesla as an auto manufacturer and the big players are goi
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Most if not all automakers' first-generation EVs (discounting prior research projects) will suck compared to a Tesla. It's even money whether FCA will survive long enough to make a good one — the market for muscle cars and Jeeps must be almost saturated by now. The other major automakers should still be around that long, though.
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A lot of investors don't actually justify the company value on the basis of how large a car company it may become over time, in terms of number of cars sold. They see Tesla as a technology company that can disrupt a number of other industries. For example, they're becoming quite good as a maker of manufacturing plants, and as an innovator, from EVs to origami car chassis to manufacturing tech. Also, many investors are enthusiastic about the company's first mover advantage in collecting road trip data via se
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Well, there's the issue.
Tesla's market cap is ALREADY more than 8 times as large as GM's. It's about 5.5 times as large as VW's. It's about 2.5 times as large as Toyota's.
Indeed, Tesla's market cap is ALREADY larger than all the next several large auto manufacturers combined.
I think Tesla looks to be a good company and expect it to be around for a long time now. The valuation the market is putting it on though is pretty bonkers.
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It's all money being bet on them getting "full self driving" to work. The recent beta release has only made investors think it's imminent, when in fact it's far far from it.
If Tesla did actually develop a full self driving car it would be worth far more than actually making the cars themselves. There would be so many applications for it, not just cars but all kinds of commercial vehicles and haulage, factory robots, military, fully self flying aircraft, all sorts of stuff. They would have cracked some incre
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Tesla's market cap could eventually be justified if and when it displaces all other major car manufacturers.
No. Tesla's market cap would be justified if they *could* displace all other major car manufacturers at some point in the future. Market cap is not at all based on what is happening now, it entirely reflects on possibilities of the future.
I.e. company announces vaccines passed a trial phase, market cap shoots up, it doesn't have approval, it's not making profit, it's just raw value.
The sword cuts both ways too. E.g. BP, whose market cap during the gulf of mexico incident dipped below the raw value of its ow
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Market cap + debt + unfunded obligations = Enterprise value [twimg.com]
Actually: "Market cap + debt + unfunded obligations - cash and cash equivalents = Enterprise value".
For anyone who finds it confusing that you would add a company's debt to determine its value (I did, the first time I encountered this concept), and perhaps even more confusing that cash reduces enterprise value, the key is to realize that whoever holds the debt effectively owns a part of the company. When a company takes on debt, usually by issuing bonds, it is mortgaging part of itself. This reduces the p
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I get the point. I think it is much more natural to think about the equation reordered in a different way at least initially.
Market cap represents the notional amount it would take to buy up all the stock and become 100% owner of the company (without driving up the price).
Of course, you should be willing to pay less for a company that has more debt than one that has more debt with all else held equal. By the same token, you should be willing to more for a company that has more cash than one that has less al
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* - Of course, you should be willing to pay less for a company that has more debt than one that has less debt, all else held equal. By the same token, you should be willing to pay more for a company that has more cash than one that has less cash, all else held equal.
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Correct.
And hence in the context of this conversation: as enterprises, the market considers Tesla, Toyota, and VW to not be that different, in terms of the net present value of future revenues. However, market cap recognizes that shareholders own a far larger percentage of Tesla's enterprise value than bondholders, and opposite for Toyota and VW. This is, of course, pretty normal for growth companies.
The key point is that the market does not think that Tesla as an enterprise is vastly more valuable than a
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** net present value of future profits.
Geez, I could really use an edit button toady....
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At the beginning of April of this year, the enterprise value of Tesla was about $100B. 8 months later it is now north of $500B and still rising quickly. What has fundamentally changed in the last 8 months in Tesla's outlook to justify a > 400% increase?
Should getting added to the S&P500 give it a bump? Absolutely. Does it justify a nearly 50% increase in its valuation in less than a month?
This is a mania and a self fulfilling prophecy of people piling in because the price keeps going up.
PS - >80%
Re:Mania (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't discount the volumes on Tesla's business lines out to 2030 by around a literal order of magnitude from the company's actual projections (sometimes even more) - which is what has to be done in order to get today's current enterprise value - Tesla would be valued dramatically higher than it is today. And it should be noted that Tesla's long-term volume predictions have actually been quite good [bloomberg.com].
Tesla was low before because it was heavily undervalued.
And the other 20% is growing faster. So project ahead.
Growth companies should never be treated as static. That doesn't mean that you should just take all growth projections at face value. But if you ever find yourself treating a growth company based on a glance at "how they are today", you're doing it wrong.
It's not just an overtake (Score:2)
Unlike Bill Gates, Elon Musk did it without establishing and running his company on anti-competitive behavior. Microsoft got convicted for abusing its market power, which it obtained through nasty techniques and deception to begin with. They were busy identifying startups and much smaller companies, "cutting Netscape's air supply" etc. which has negative effects to this day. Embrace, extend, extinguish.
So this isn't a milestone. When Elon Musk had 1/100h of the wealth Bill Gates had, he was already superior
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I mean, PayPal used anticompetitive behavior. But unlike Gates, who at least treated his employees well, Musk seems to be hell to work for.
How rich are they really? (Score:3)
I would argue that Elon Musk's wealth is an illiquid asset; he can't sell it all as it would tank the stock price while he was selling it.
Guys like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates over the years have become heavily diversified with a huge variety of assets. They could sell a lot to obtain a staggering amount of capital. Guys like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk - not so much. Additionally if their stock tanks, did the wealth they supposedly lost ever really exist?
While these guys are super rich on paper, in reality there is a big limit on how much real money they can lay their hands on.
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In addition, if Musk wants to retain a high degree of control over his companies, that sharply limits the amount of stock he can sell. He currently own around 21% of Tesla, but 2/3 vote is required to make any large changes, so nearly 85% of the remaining shareholders would be needed to overrule him.
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He can borrow against his stock as collateral at rock bottom interest rates ...
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Jeff Bezos's early Google investment alone would qualify him for the Fortune 400. Nor is there a reason to think he cannot access his money. Every quarter he sells over a billion dollars worth of Amazon stock to finance his hobbies like rocketry and his personal spending. Other than people panicking, assuming Bezos getting out of Amazon stock was an indicator of trouble at Amazon, there's no reason him selling all his stock over a couple of years would tank the stock.
I'd say Musk is
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he can't sell it all as it would tank the stock price while he was selling it
You assume that stock can only be traded within the stockmarket. If Musk decided to sell his 20% stake in Tesla to Apple or the Saudi Public Investment Fund, they would make a transaction between themselves - Musk's stock would never enter the market. They would be obliged to announce the transaction, but it would be perfectly legitimate. Musk would almost certainly get a premium for his stake.
This happens all the time when one company wants to buy a stake in another. So yes, he can sell it all - but he'd b
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While these guys are super rich on paper, in reality there is a big limit on how much real money they can lay their hands on.
When you reach a certain threshold of wealth due to your ownership of a large corporation, there is no longer a practical limit on how much real money you can get your hands on. You can take out loans against the value of your shares, and they can be hundreds of millions of dollars. Donald Trump has over $467 million in loans. Giant banks are willing to lend this kind of money in hopes that you will default, and they get to take ownership of your company. That's the game, and why there is no limit to th
fictive money (Score:2)
Suppose I have a company that I get to put on the stock market, and initially 10 of the 1000 shares get sold for 1000 USD each, the company is now worth 1 million. Only 10k USD changed hands. One share of the 10 on the open market gets sold for 2000 USD. 11k USD is now in other hands. The company is now officially worth 2 million. There is
Its some gamma hedging anomaly ... (Score:2)
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Thanks very much. I think is the most likely explanation I've read.
Re:Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:3)
You dont see mars as an important step? I dont mean to speak light of health or clean energy, but speaking in terms of the long term survival of the species, it is right up there. I dont think there is a person alive that had not been taught the parable of putting all your eggs in a single basket. Of course we should spend resources curing disease, famine, pollution, but if we decide the basket problem can wait till some way distant time, we might find our basket smashed along the way. Its not like there is
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You dont see mars as an important step?
Nope. It's an interesting place to visit and research but living there is a pointless waste of a lot of energy. It's a dump.
Re: Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:2)
While it might be subterranean, its still a place to house our genetic material. At one point in our history homosapien was reduced to about 1000 people. Obviously you might not want to live there, but someone certainly might. Think of it as a living seed vault for humanity. If the earth fucks itself into a coma, it will eventually come back. With off-world colonies, humans can return to its birthplace when it recovers.
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Let's rock then, and go to Mars. Surely there we will find a convenient truth. [/sarcasm]
Larry Niven : “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!”
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While not funding the vaccine directly he has pledged money to help distribute the vaccine to poorer countries.
https://www.gatesfoundation.or... [gatesfoundation.org]
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Let's wait to count those dollars until they are actually spent.
Just like Trump's deal didn't fund vaccine development but Dolly Parton's donation did, you can't count Bill Gates' promises until they are fulfilled. He's still claiming to have wiped out diseases that aren't wiped out.
Re: Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:4, Informative)
It doesnt surprise me Dolly Parton gave cash to help fund a vaccine. Thats just who she is. She has always done things like that and you never really hear about it. Did you know that she gives highschool graduates in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge a stipend? She felt that encouraging kids in the Appalachia to finish school and not drop out would be a huge benefit to her home town.
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Yeah, she also has a program to give books to people who can't afford them. She's obviously a real person who actually cares about people.
Re:Bill Gates wasted his fortune on charities (Score:5, Informative)
Unless of course you don't think ending Polio and Malaria are important.
https://www.npr.org/blogs/heal... [npr.org]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
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He hasn't ended polio OR malaria, only chased them back to reservoirs.
That is something of an accomplishment, but neither of those things are actually gone. That doesn't stop people from claiming that he has eradicated them, though, obviously.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
"distributed more than US$7.8 billion, including more than US$2 billion for work combating HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria; approximately US$1.9 billion for immunizations; and US$448 million for the GCGH projects"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Committed funding ($ millions)
Infectious disease control 5586.4
Malaria control 1456.1
STD control including HIV/AIDS 1308
Tuberculosis control 1094
Reproductive health care 905.8
Agricultural research 807.2
Famil
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This is unlike Musk, that even if one of his projects succeeds humanity will be better off in 2120.
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Bill and Melinda Foundation, while well-meaning
I'm not sure that spending money to make the world forget that you got that money dishonestly and are, in fact, a complete shit WHILE also linking the "charity" to contracts for companies that will end up making you even richer counts as "well-meaning".
If Bill gave us back the money he stole, we could fund the charities we want to fund and not even require that they engrave our names over the door.
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Near as I can tell, people freely bought Microsoft products without a gun to their head.
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When people talk about richest men, they always mean by business.
Maybe that was true once, but now they mean personal holdings of wealth. It's not about what you control, but about what's in your name. That's why the fortune stashed in the Gates Foundation isn't counted as part of Gates' wealth. (Although it's still not true that he's "giving away all his money" as he is actually worth more on paper now than he was when he founded it... but that's another rant.) I agree with your apparent position that we should count funds directly controlled by people as their money. I
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I think Musk should pull that same trick. He has a foundation (the Musk Foundation), but since he hasn't started selling Tesla yet, and doesn't plan to for many years, the size is much smaller than Gates's foundation. It's given away something like $60M. But then again, Musk doesn't spend (comparably) that much on himself either - Gates's largest home alone is worth more than all the property Musk ever owned combined, and he's sold off almost all his property in the past year.
Transfering a lot of Tesla's st
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If you start talking about what you control it gets difficult, particularly with government figures. Remember when people were saying Obama could head off a government shutdown by directing the Treasury to mint a $1 trillion coin? Does every president become a trillionaire (and why stop there) because there is a law that theoretically allows them to do that?
https://www.theatlantic.com/bu... [theatlantic.com]
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It may surprise you, but accountants have various standards for control. Obama could not print a trillion dollar coin and go shopping, so he doesn't control it. Nor does Jeff Bezos count as a trillionaire just because he controls Amazon - he only gets to count the 12% of it he owns.
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They are plenty rich, but they aren't trillionaires.
Re:What about the rothchilds or royalty ? (Score:4, Informative)
Nonsense, the Rothschilds' combined wealth is under $0.4B and the royal families of old are D-lister riffraff compared to the modern space royalty this clown economy has created.
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I mean, Queen Elizabeth on paper is massively wealthy, just leases out her property at well-below market value to the various governments in the commonwealth and stores most of the rest of her wealth in trusts. If she ever tried to enforce her full property rights at fair-market value, there may be a move away from England being a monarchy.
Re:What about the rothchilds or royalty ? (Score:5, Informative)
When people talk about richest men, they always mean by business. But the Rothchilds family are trillionaires and royalty around the world has a similar holding.
The richest Rothschild there is left, is "only" worth around $1.6 billion, the trillionaire claim is the latest variation on an anti-semitic trope that has been going around since the 18th century back when the family indeed might have been one of the richest in the world but that has long been untrue.
In fact one of the memes around them is comically false in that it claims they are worth $500 trillion but the entire output of the world economy is only worth around $250 trillion.
And just in case there are conspiracy nuts that will be inclined to try to defend the nonsense, if you don't have independently verifiable documentary proof then it is as good as a pack of lies. Vague hints and innuendos can be invented about anyone by anyone at the drop of a hat. I assume that anything that starts with "People/They say.." or "I've heard before..." or any other such non-specific qualifier is just a lie you yourself made up.
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In fact one of the memes around them is comically false in that it claims they are worth $500 trillion but the entire output of the world economy is only worth around $250 trillion.
Not rejecting or affirming your overall message, but this part dioesn't follow, this is not how math works. The output of the world economy is an annual figure, and can very loosely compare to one's annual income. I'm sure you know of somebody whose personal _wealth_ is larger than the annual _income_ of some group of people.
If on the other hand, the meme tries to show the impossibility not via exposing a purported math violation but via comparing two large figures, then it becomes clear that it's an apples
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Sure, irony, though it required two things:
It was apparently OK to compensate by buying stocks, but usually it's not liquidity that a company needs, it usually needs compensation ie. equivalent cash, rather than giving something in return eg. stocks.
Also, given the freedom, it was his personal choice to buy stocks, and anybody who bought the equivalent quantity of TSLA at the time stood to gain the same exact amount. Sure he had the money and will to risk that money, but it's not like the SEC made him gain