Elon Musk is Now the Richest Person in the World (cnbc.com) 154
Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion. From a report: Thursday's increase in Tesla's share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion. Musk's wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history -- and marks a dramatic financial turnaround for the famed entrepreneur who just 18 months ago was in the headlines for Tesla's rapid cash burn and his personal leverage against Tesla's stock. Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion, and was barely in the top 50 richest people. Tesla's rocketing share price -- which has increased more than nine-fold over the past year -- along with his generous pay package have added more than $150 billion to his net worth.
Goals (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Goals (Score:5, Funny)
He wouldn't kill them (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk is excellent at helping the world improve. (Score:2)
Think how that makes Jeff Bezos feel! Each of us could send Bezos $1 so he would feel better.
Elon Musk is not good at choosing a woman with whom to have a relationship. Elon Musk is also not good at talking about his interest in Mars.
However, Musk is helping the world move in the direction of less global warming, less automobile pollution, and less dependence on fossil fuels. He is excellent at helping the world improve.
So, I don't agree with th
Re: Musk is excellent at helping the world improve (Score:3)
Even if the entire humanoty gave him $1 each, that would still only be a drop in the bucket for him.
Let that sink in for a moment.
No, he did NOT work that much..There is no work deserving that hourly rate, compared to your hourly rate at your job, full stop.
Re:Goals (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, so that's why he wants to invade Mars and kill all the rich Martians out there? Makes sense.
Not kill them, sell stuff to them. It's much more effective, and doesn't get your shoes covered in ichor.
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Not kill them, sell stuff to them. It's much more effective, and doesn't get your shoes covered in ichor.
Too bad SARS-Cov-2 will kill them all before they can buy much stuff.
We've read the book, right? War of the Worlds? It's an instruction manual. "1. Cough on them. 2. Wait. 3. Take their land." Tried and true tactic.
Re: Goals (Score:2)
No need to mingle with the peasants.
Send blankets.
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How is it measured (Score:3)
Is it "on paper", in "cash", in boullon, or cryptobits? Not all of those wealth stores can be converted at face value to actual purchasing power.
Re:How is it measured (Score:5, Funny)
"Is it "on paper", in "cash", in boullon, or cryptobits? Not all of those wealth stores can be converted at face value to actual purchasing power."
His wife's divorce lawyer will show you it can be divided quite nicely.
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Re: How is it measured (Score:2)
Smart man.
-- Al Bundy
Re: How is it measured (Score:2)
Saying "citation needed", right below a fucking citation you yourself made, means you are literally to stupid for logic. Go back to the xkcd forums.
Re:Goals [of Saint Elon] (Score:2)
Okay as a joke, and some of the best FPs are, but why plural? Hidden assumption that wealth is Musk's highest priority goal among many? [But market cap is just virtual wealth.]
Trying to get my own thoughts in order on this topic. Discussions of Musk tend to resemble religious arguments, but Musk's faithful are a strange crowd. They seem to see him as some kind of saint of technology. Next meta-question: How many of Musk's followers used to follow Saint Steven of Jobs? Another locus of similar discussions. B
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That's with a "b." As in Big Bucks.
I don't know that I want to bet on Musk; his predictions have a knack of taking a lot longer, than expected, to come true. But I'm not stupid enough to bet against him.
None of his ideas, in their basic form, are that inventive. Low-pressure tube-based travel was a sci-fi fixture, as were tunnels under major cities, re-usable rockets and electric vehicles. But the execution of those ideas .
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The current value of Tesla is more or less equal to pretty much every other car company on earth... combined. That's pure insanity--even through the lens of "long term growth" if you believe such bullshit in this case.
I'm not stupid enough to short Tesla, either, but not because of any "Elon 4D chess' ideas, but because of the old adage that "the ability of the market to remain irrational far exceeds your ability to remain solvent."
American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
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The richest man in the world is an African American and an immigrant!
I appreciate the sentiment of your comment, but the cold truth is he just isn't black and this is where it matters.
Most Americans either are immigrants or have ancestors who were immigrants and so most people won't care much for this fact. Most stop caring once somebody has got a job or is rich. Where it could get worse, meaning White Power supporters might appreciate this, is that white people in Africa have their own racist past, see Apartheid. So they might like him for it, because it fits their agenda e
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Re:American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
His father owned an emerald mine and internet denizens somehow feel that makes him entitled. His upbringing was super troubled and he never got anything from his father or anyone else. I think he has issues for sure, but he is a visionary and he takes risks in the name of technology, and IMHO deserves credit for that.
Re: American dream (Score:5, Informative)
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1) He is a genius and does deserve credit for that.
2) He got a superb education and a superb network of intelligent, wealthy acquaintances and friends. These two things alone are 95% predictor of success. There are people that found their entire career career on going to a single party of the type his family routinely held.
If he had been born to a poor family, he would have ended up running a successful electronic store, rather than ending up as the wealthiest person in the world.
Re:American dream (Score:4, Informative)
Musk had no family money. Dad was a deadbeat and didn't contribute anything. Mom worked as a nutritionist and model to support family when the emigrated from South Africa to Canada.
Musk worked for/built PayPal and cashed out with $200 million.
He put the entire $200 million into Tesla and SpaceX. Both of these companies were close to bankruptcy at one point and he would have lost everything.
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I think he has issues for sure
Yes
but he is a visionary
No. In rockets he just side stepped the bureaucracy. In EVs he's just not some car company that's been around for 100 years with baggage. And everything else is pretty much some other persons idea that he's tossed money at. The hyperloop? Yeah purposed in 1918. The type of drilling he does purposed in 1880s. He's just the first person to throw money at most of the ideas he's taken credit for. Which I grant you, makes him a big risk taker, no argument there. But zero of his ideas are original. A
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I thought the American dream was to be completely self made, pull yourself up from your bootstraps.
Uh, the American Dream is more aligned with reasonable prosperity, not global financial domination that makes hardcore S&M look like two toddlers playing patty-cake.
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You should quit being envious of people who are better off than you. They don't affect you, you only hurt yourself.
Anyway, the idea that a lefty SJW would know what the "American Dream" is is nonsense. He got a loan from his parents of some tens of thousands of dollars. He's multiplied that by many millions while creating products that people want and completely changing the way space travel works.
Meanwhile, you whine on slashdot about anybody who makes more money than you.
We need more Elon Musks and few
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Re:American dream (Score:5, Insightful)
While I would probably would had pushed towards a Linux based infrastructure.
But in the year 2000 Unix was on its way out. Mainly due to a few major issues.
1. They were often tied to a particular brand of Computer.
Solaris - Sun Sparc
AIX - IBM
Tru64 - DEC
IRIX - SGI
HP-UX - HP
Each version of Unix were similar, but often offered some notable difference. So for a complex system porting specialized code from AIX to Solaris wasn't always as simple as a configure && make && make --install. Especially for custom code where they may not be a configure option for your platform.
2. Unix servers were expensive. a 2k Upper mid range PC in 2000 can cost $4 or 8k for these Unix server. Yes they are better built but PC prices were dropping at a rate where it was cheaper to get 2 or 3 PC's and you have redundancy, that still is more affordable accounting for lack of quality.
3. Unix servers were the black sheep in the business infrastructure. Sure you could do you work on Unix work stations. However by 2000 people wanted to use Office for much of their office work. As well as share data with other businesses and customers who used office too.
4. It was easier to staff employees. Finding a Unix admin in 2000 was often difficult, while if you had a windows admin you can get them a dime a dozen.
I myself wouldn't have decided to go to Windows in 2000. However I don't see Musk decision to do so, something outrageous.
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You are comparing Unix servers to Windows desktops. That was not the choice that they were faced with at the time.
Unix was definitely not on the way out in 2000. If you wanted a 64-bit processor, there was no Windows solution.
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Certainly most commercial *nixen were on their way out.
But Linux was becoming usable for most server workloads by around that time.
I don't recall whether the *BSDs were sufficiently unencumbered by lawsuits by then, but they might have been options once they were.
But for server workloads, containers are eating the world right now, and rendering the underlying OS more and more obsolete.
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Tesla cars all run Linux. Also the Tesla, SpaceX infrastructure is Linux.
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Having a bit of insight to internal Tesla infrastructure, most of it is Linux but they do use Active Directory Federated Services for user authentication and authorization, so there's definitely a Windows Server component.
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Thanks for that clarification.
First to trillion? (Score:2, Redundant)
It's not inconceivable the Tesla and SpaceX can go up over 5x .. considered Tesla has gone up 500x since IPO, that would make him a trillionaire.
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Not 500x, perhaps tripping over time. Once Tesla has the factory power to meet demand, and SpaceX has its family of rockets. And Electric Cars are common and coming out of other makers as well with valid options. I see Tesla slowing its growth. Because the market will be more saturated.
At this moment Tesla is one of the few car brands with multiple models that are all electric and for the United States meets what we consider acceptable range and performance. While the others have smaller range, or poor
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Think what that mans for your salary. (Score:2)
Every time the total purchase power in the market goes up, you own unchanged purchase power becomes a smaller fraction of that. With unchanged total production capacity, that means you just got a pay cut, congratulations!, reasons so cheer!
And yeah, production capacity may have gone up. But purchase power aka available "money" has gone up more. So people shrug, and go "inflation".
But actually, wealth and power were stolen from them.
And that is deliberate too.
Bezos (Score:2, Interesting)
Bezos would be worth double if he did F around with that news reporter lady and have to get divorced. Anything for love I guess. Except loyalty.
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In my opinion, the problem here isn't love, commitment, nor even sex drives. The problem here is an outdated framework of laws that regulate property allocation after such relationships end.
Re: Bezos (Score:2)
It's called a prenuptial agreement...
Re:Bezos (Score:5, Insightful)
Marriage is a contract. If you sign a partnership agreement and start a company .. you take charge of the sales work and your partner handles hiring. Then one day you don't like your business partner anymore .. can you tell your partner that you "did most of the work" and kick him out and keep full ownership of the company?
A marriage contract is exactly like that. If two people agree on a partnership and various terms for whatever reasons (call it stupid) .. the agreement must be honored.
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Yes, I understand what it is, and I am saying it doesn't make sense. Not anymore.
In cases where two people of equal incomes get married, and then later separate, it makes perfect sense that they should both walk away with roughly half of what they have earned.
In cases where one very rich person marries one very poor person, and the poor person makes hardly any financial contribution to the relationship whereas the rich person makes huge financial contributions, it does NOT make sense that the poor person s
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What you are saying is that if a poor person signs a partnership agreement with a rich person, the rich person should be able to void that agreement by saying he started off poor? An agreement is only half applicable if someone is poor?
If you're rich and feel that your partner won't make any meaningful contribution to you, then either ask the poor person to sign a prenuptial agreement before marriage or don't get married at all. It's a serious thing, marriage. Of course divorce is needed when two people gro
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Maid, butler, and nanny services are legal purchasable and have market rates that are nowhere near the billions of dollars that are awarded in wealthy-person divorces. A wealthy person can, in fact, raise children on their own for a fraction of the cost of these high profile divorces.
I know that isn't a pleasing thing to hear. But being objective requires rejecting pleasing fantasies. There actually is a price on most of what a non-working parent contributes, and it isn't very high. Sex has a market rat
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I am NOT SAYING that these contributions are valueless, and I am NOT SAYING that a husband or wife is "nothing more" than a maid or prostitute or therapist.
But you are saying that those should be used as the basis for ascertaining their contribution to the marital assets when the couple separates. Would Amazon (and Bezos) be what it is today if Mrs. Bezos hadn't been at his side? Maybe having her there was the only thing keeping him from swinging from the rafters. Without her maybe we'd know Bezos as "that guy that used to run Amazon but went on a 2 year bender of cocaine and hookers." You and I can never know, and you can't put a financial number on that.
M
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But you are saying that those should be used as the basis for ascertaining their contribution to the marital assets when the couple separates.
NO! I did NOT say that, nor did I imply that. You are misrepresenting my position. I am saying that the market-value of those services means you CANNOT argue that a poor person deserves great wealth in a divorce BECAUSE of their provision of those services. That specific argument is no argument for the justification of these huge payouts, and that is all I said wi
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In that context I was talking about financial contribution, which of course can be quantified.
And even if I concede that "total contribution" may not be quantifiable, that still doesn't make the divorce arrangement fair to a wealthy person who marries a poor one.
Re:Bezos (Score:4, Informative)
Not double. His wife got 25% of his wealth under the settlement.
Help me understand (Score:3, Insightful)
How does a car company selling less than a million units a year warrant such rapid increase in perceived value? Certainly Tesla has a lead in battery technology, but are investors expecting Tesla to be as dominant in the car/battery market as Amazon/Facebook/Google are in their respective industries?
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Yes.
Re: Help me understand (Score:2)
That is the delusion gamblers tell you.
Gotta be pretty damn stupid or deludes to believe it.
Glass beads buyer stupid. Bitcoin buyer stupid. Ponzi scheme victim stupid.
Re:Help me understand (Score:5, Insightful)
Tesla is expected to sell a million cars in 2021 and has been doubling every two years. There is a lot of future growth factored into the stock price.
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> There is a lot of future growth factored into the stock price.
"A lot" is an understatement. There is an inconceivable amount of growth factored into the share price. It assumes that no other company will ever sell cars again, INCLUDING companies like BVD which already sell 4X or 5X as many *electric* cars than Tesla does.
It assumes that none of the automakers will ever sell any electrics, despite assuming that consumers will only buy electric.
Re:Help me understand (Score:4, Insightful)
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BYD makes cars.
BVD makes underware.
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Lol yep, thanks.
On a similar note, TupperWARE, underWEAR.
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Cars have brakes.
Underwear breaks.
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But your underwear gets brake lines when your car's brakes break.
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People aren't bidding up the stock based on what it is worth today. It's based on what they think it will be worth in the future. I have more faith in Musk's company being relevant in 10 years than I do of something like Walmart (Fortune #1). I suspect that is why Walmart has a relatively low valuation multiple even though it generates a half a trillion dollars a year in revenue, and handy profit, and a dividend for shareholders for the past few decades running.
Supercharger network alone would do it (Score:2)
How does a car company selling less than a million units a year warrant such rapid increase in perceived value?
Just think of how long it will take any automaker to build out anything like the Supercharger network, and you see that Tesla has the foundation to be a huge market leader in electric cars for many, many years to come...
Not to mention the sleeper hits of power walls and solar roofs, both of which have major advantages over competition if you look into details of what they offer right now. And they
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It probably needs to be said that Robinhood, ETrade, and similar have a lot to do with the situation. I can't tell you how many times my Virgin Galactic stock has shot up when there is favorable news for Virgin mobile, Virgin Orbital, etc... no different with Musk and Tesla. Tesla stocks shouldn't be tied to how well Nikola is doing in the news cycle, yet here we are. Greed and stupid uneducated investors are pumping it up, and Tesla had no choice but to capitalize (literally) on the surge. Now they're
What has any of it to do with the business? (Score:2)
That is like askinghow a blockchain number can be worth $20k.
It has absolutely nothing to with that business. And evrything with how strong they expect the delusion to be for stupid people that give them money.
Secrets to his success (Score:5, Insightful)
The BBC interviewed him on his success and wrote this about him: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus... [bbc.co.uk]
The short list of his secrets are:
1. It isn't about the money
2. Pursue your passions
3. Don't be afraid to think big
4. Be ready to take risks
5. Ignore the critics
6. Enjoy yourself
Seems alright! Let's hope he keeps it this way and doesn't start killing the competition like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos just because they wanted more.
Re:Secrets to his success (Score:5, Insightful)
That is really good advice on how to go from being the top 10% to being the top 1%.
It is acceptable advice for people that are in the top 40% of wealth.
It is horrible advice for anyone that is in the bottom 60%. (Except the last).
You have to make it mostly about the money if you are in the bottom 60%. Otherwise you end up broke and homeless.
No one will trust you enough to pursue your passions OR think Big unless you have the money to fund yourself.
When the risk is lose 1/2 your assets, including both vacation homes, that is a GOOD idea to take. When the risk is lose 1/2 your assets and have to sell your car AND your only home, that is not a good idea.
If your critics are celebrities, news, and politicians, ignore them. When they are your boss, family, and friends, pay CLOSE attention to them.
But he is right, you should always enjoy yourself.
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Instructions unclear, spent everything on lotto scratchers quit my job to join a band and took out loans to invest in bacon-flavored yogurt.
The irony of YOLO is that the concept of scarcity has always meant something to be guarded, not squandered.
So for you, then (Score:5, Insightful)
> That is really good advice on how to go from being the top 10% to being the top 1%.
> It is acceptable advice for people that are in the top 40% of wealth
So it "is really good advice" for you, then. You are in the top 10% richest people in the world if your net worth (including equity in your home, car, 401k, bank account, etc) is greater than $118K.
I don't know if you're aware, but when rich people like you whine that someone else is even richer, the perception is the same as when Hillary Banks is unhappy with the BMW because the neighbor has a Bentley. It's precisely the same thing. You're one of the richest people on the planet, dude.
I've got about that much equity (Score:2)
On paper I'm "rich" but it's all a house of cards. I'm one round of layoffs during a bad economy way from homelessness, and at least 60% of Americans are too. Probably 70%, maybe 80%.
There's a reason we had civil unrest in the Capital Bu
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1) Yes. It is good advice for me. I am rich. Among other things, I own shares of Tesla. I love that crazy idiot-savant Elon, he is one of the reasons I am so well off.
2) You have some personal issues unrelated to me. I never whined about him being rich. I simply pointed out that a man I admire gave advice to other rich people, but that most people have no business following him.
He may be a genius about some things, but he is also bat shit insane, and nobody should listen to personal advice from him
My apologies (Score:3)
> You have some personal issues unrelated to me. I never whined about him being rich.
That is true. My apologies.
I'm getting so sick and f*cking tired of spoiled, entitled brats talking about "rich people" that I had a premature gut reaction when I started reading your post. I didn't carefully read it and respond to what you actually said because my pathos started screaming and my logos couldn't focus.
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The trouble with how most people understand "the rich" is all they see is the money and not the behavior. The difference between a rich person and a poor person isn't in how you make your money, it's how you spend (or leverage) your money.
A poor person scraps and saves for $50000 and decides to spend it on a really nice RV, so they can enjoy their time away from work.
A rich person scraps and saves for $50000 and decides to invest it in the stock market, or perhaps an idea to start a business, so they can e
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Too bad he doesn't listen to his own advice.
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And no, I'm not buying the whitewashed stories I keep reading. Just like Bill Gates did Elon will have used some of his money to work up a nice, down home story of his humble origins.
Never ask a man how he made his first million bucks. And definitely don't ask his publicist.
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5. Ignore the critics
I kind of wish he did that more, instead of implying that his critics are pedophiles or morons, and egging them on more and more.
I'm glad (Score:2)
* anyon
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If you confiscated their wealth (Score:2, Informative)
Just to put things in perspective:
If you were to confiscate all 370 billion of their combined net worth, you could fund the Federal Government for 28 days.
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With An Asterisk (Score:2)
He's the richest person *on paper* It's mostly from stocks, which would immediately devalue if he were to liquidate his assets.
The other factor is that these lists only cover *personal* wealth. The Saudi Royal Family, for example, owns the entire Saudi government. If they want to buy an airline, they can have the government pay for it. It's not *technically* their money, but they control every aspect of it. Individually, as far as anyone knows, they are worth several billion dollars. As a family, with all o
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He still might be #2 actually. Vladimir Putin was estimated by some to be worth $200 billion back in 2018. Musk is still only at a paltry $185 billion.
https://www.townandcountrymag.... [townandcountrymag.com]
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He's the richest person *on paper* It's mostly from stocks
Are you implying that someone with, say, $1000 in cash, as opposed to stocks, is richer?
Ranking (Score:2)
I'm saying it's difficult to nail down someone's net worth when most of it is fungible assets. His assets are worth what people decide to buy them for. It might be $185 billion, or it might be less. All it would take is an accounting scandal, or some bad press, and he'd be worth significantly less.
Now take dictators, monarchs and oligarchs. They are, usually, sitting on large piles of cash in one form or another. They aren't going to let anyone know how much or where it's stored. When Yasser Arafat died, fo
and now we know why (Score:2)
Teslanaires (Score:2)
It's not just Musk. Lots of people have become millionaires this year because they bought the stock cheaply in the past.
https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]
Not according to my Dad (Score:2)
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Lao Tzu (Score:2)
I am just as rich as Musk
“He who is satisfied with his lot is rich;”
(disclaimer: I am not actually satisfied with my lot)
No he isn't. (Score:2)
Can't buy a single stick of gum from me, with that makebelief money.
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i have people tell me i am wrong all the time, and i listen to them.
And?
Are they right, or are they wrong?
Re: Time for him to post some crazy shit (Score:2)
At least he has some fun.
What good is having so much money if you can't have fun?
Also, you limit for "crazy" is insanely pathetic by 1970s/80s standards. How old are you? Lamest Generation age, perchance?
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I'm not suggesting it's a problem, I'm entertained by it myself.
But the pattern is what it is.
Re: Better idea (Score:2)
Still more interesting news than TFA.
Doewonmod all you want; you know it.