Paper wealth is a real problem (and the financialization of everything has made more paper wealth appear than imaginable) and your "illiquid" stock can cause all sorts of fun when various thing try to force you to mark-to-market something that basically doesn't have a market (I'm sure you'd sell your shares for $1 billion, and be insulted if I offered you $5 total, so they must have some value but good luck finding what that is AND realizing it).

You also have this with houses in California (and more and more, the entire country) - a family in a house that they pay $x per month on is not likely to really feel different if you tell them the house is worth $250k or $500k or $5m - because the price will likely be "in line" with those around them and so actually getting access to the "wealth" is difficult - the only real way is to move far away.

I feel a big part of the problem is we've made the world great for those who know how to navigate it, but horrible for those who don't (or can't). If you are disciplined from the beginning, always save 10% of what you make into retirement 410(k)s, 10% into rainy-day funds, spend less than 30% on housing, you're going to do quite well - but that's a small portion. Seventy years ago you could be a near literal moron, work at the factory, and live a good life - because the company handled your pension and healthcare without asking you to make decisions that frankly most people aren't capable of making - and it was difficult to leverage yourself to death.

Most people don't give a shit about wealth inequality if they can live a good if humble life without undue stress.

Elon Musk existing doesn't bother me as long as I can provide for my family and feel I'm getting a "decent deal". But if I'm overworked, underpaid, drowning in debt, and prices are rising, his existence is going to be a lot more annoying.

(One of the problems of publicly-traded companies is manager's capitalism - https://ia601506.us.archive.org/26/items/bogle-managerial-ca... - both really come down to nobody actually owning something in the meaning of taking responsibility to the thing, because ownership is so diluted it basically has no meaning.)