| ▲ | infobot 12 hours ago |
| You…wouldn’t be bullish on the most successful businessman in the history of the world? Sometimes I come here for a good laugh |
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| ▲ | ethbr1 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > most successful businessman in the history of the world You're ranking Musk above Jobs, Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Disney, Toyoda, Walton, and Buffett? |
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| ▲ | ANewFormation 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | IMO it depends on what you see as the point of business and entrepreneurship. I don't see money as the goal, but rather on creating great things. So Buffet wouldn't even rank for me, while you would have omitted Musk's closest competitor - Thomas Edison. Put another way, if in 30 years Musk has 10 trillion in wealth would seem, to me, to be much less relevant than if he succeeds in making humanity a permanently multi-planetary species. Advancing humanity in so many different revolutionary fields all at once is something that had not been achieved in a very long time. | | |
| ▲ | ethbr1 an hour ago | parent [-] | | I get what you're saying, but I also think you're being reductive in devaluing wealth creation. Why is a company worth more today than it was five years ago? Because it's generating more revenue, has more assets... is better at doing whatever {company thing} is. One can argue that (a) {company thing} isn't good for humanity at all and/or (b) a company which generates more money isn't really more successful, but merely a side effect of capitalist valuing. And maybe... But I'd say there's a pretty strong argument that Buffett is worth what he is because BH made multiple companies very much better at doing what they do. In the same way that Ford or Walton made their money by building companies that did what they did better. And I'd add in the perspective that science and discovery without engineering into mass application is... a hobby with limited impact. The real litmus test is "Can you use this to improve many people's lives?" And when you do that in a capitalist society, you usually have a chance to make a lot of money. |
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| ▲ | taeric 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Many people don't have any real understanding of how wealthy people have been in the past. The Walton family is a fun case. Split the fortune among the family and there are still billionaires in the mix. Edit: should add that Elon is still valued at a good percentage of the US gdp. So, not unreasonable to say that is incomprehensible, as well. By that measure, is similar to Rockefeller, I think. | | |
| ▲ | lotsofpulp 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wouldn’t use the Waltons in this example, considering Walmart is eclipsed by a few companies, and even by 50% by one business that Musk has a significant share of. | | |
| ▲ | taeric 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Silly comparison, all told. Walmart is the single largest private employer. 1.6 million in the US. Literally 10x what Tesla and SpaceX have. Such that it is clear valuation is tough. Look, Elon is worth a lot. Walton family is worth as much, as well. Just split among several people. None of which should be scoffed at. None are made more impressive by pretending the others are less. |
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| ▲ | tgma 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This characterization isn't entirely unreasonable. Isn't Musk objectively the richest businessperson ever in nominal dollars? Inflation-adjusted, I think only Rockefeller or Carnegie may come close, but the variety of businesses Musk has is impressive, and it appears he is just getting started with a long way to go. | | |
| ▲ | highwaylights 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Inflation-adjusted I believe Rockefeller was worth more than $400b at the peak of his wealth. The Walton estate now is worth over $350b, but it’s not a fair comparison as it’s had much longer to compound. The other thing is that while SpaceX is incredibly successful, the other companies he’s started aren’t. Tesla (despite its massive growth) is in a market of rapidly growing competitors, and he’s on record saying the company lives or dies on tech his own engineers have suggested in court isn’t coming (FSD). | | |
| ▲ | tgma 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Google Search says Elon is at 334.3 gigadollars so not that far off and he's not dead yet. | |
| ▲ | 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | latentcall 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Elon is successful yes but why do other men feel the need to stroke him off online all the time? Strange behavior. Are you expecting a kickback? |
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| ▲ | scotty79 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think this is a psychological thing. Humans during evolution were highly rewarded for seeking and keeping powerful allies. So by imagining that Elon is my friend (because I'm his friend) and Elon is really intrinsically powerful (instead of just a lucky, well positioned grifter that can fall from grace at any moment) I can feel better about my own safety. I can feel more powerful by extension and the indirection somehow muddles that fact that it's all made up. The same mechanism works in religious people. | | |
| ▲ | openrisk 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | You might be onto something but we need a proper "evolutionary theory of bootlicking" before we get carried away. Its pretty clear that the all-too-common in space and time hierarchies, oligarchies, command-and-control pyramids etc. rely on trickle-down privilege to sustain. But the feeligs of disgust and disbelief at how a person can diminish themselves in the hope of some crumbs falling their way must also have strong evolutionary basis? | | |
| ▲ | refurb 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’m not sure I understand your viewpoint. The OP said “the most successful businessman in the world”. Sure one can argue about how OP came to that conclusion, by what measure, etc, but the man produced a highly successful car company, in a field nobody has really been able to do it, under terms where everyone was counting down the days until it went bankrupt. That alone is an amazing feat. Then he went on to create a rocket company that broke barriers of space travel no one has been able to do. Then he started a satellite company that pushed the boundaries of communication for the average person. I’d say all those feats are worthy of praise and make him a person who stands out significantly from any other businessman in recent history. So saying he’s the “most successful businessman” doesn’t seem like an absurd or overly hyperbolic statement. And how you got “stroking off” or the even more absurd “bootlicking” from that statement is just bizarre. I saw zero evidence of either. I’d say your comments are the odd ones here and say more about you than the OP. |
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| ▲ | TheAlchemist 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That depends on how you define successful businessman. If we look at valuations, then yeah. If we look at how much money all of his ventures make ? The picture is very different. SpaceX - may or may not be profitable in the last year - it's hard to know. Until recently definitely no profitable Tesla - really profitable since 2021, with great 2022 / 2023. Trending in the wrong direction recently Twitter, xAI, boring, neuralink - all are money furnaces. |
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| ▲ | nordsieck 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > SpaceX - may or may not be profitable in the last year - it's hard to know. Until recently definitely no profitable SpaceX is very much in the same position as early Amazon. If they wanted to, they could be profitable today. But they are investing heavily in the future. IMO, that's a good sign for SpaceX. Many large companies have run out of ideas of what to do with money, so they accumulate it in bank accounts, or do dividends/stock buybacks. |
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| ▲ | ulfw 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Ah yes. This coming from another one of Elon's bot accounts. With a Karma of 2 no less. |
