Elon Musk Can Save The World... But He Won't (Script & Sources)
Added 2021-11-02 04:47:33 +0000 UTCGood morning, bad news: Elon Musk can end world hunger in just 4 hours. That’s not hyperbole. 42 million people are facing starvation right now in a category 4 emergency hunger crisis, and the UN executive director for the World Food Program is making a direct appeal for just $6 billion dollars to keep those people alive. Meanwhile, three days ago, Elon Musk’s net worth went up by $36 billion dollars in 24 hours.
Again, it’s not hyperbole - during the pandemic, billionaires increase their wealth by more than $2 trillion dollars, and the top 5 billionaires, Musk, Bezos, Gates, Ellison, and Page, single handedly grew their fortunes faster than all the other billionaires combined.
These five people have more money than God, there is no longer a shred of nuance about the fact that each of them can singlehandedly prevent massive suffering and death with just the interest that they make on their obscene fortunes. Elon Musk is about to be worth $300 billion dollars, and 2% of that, or 4 hours of this week’s net worth gain, could prevent 42 million deaths.
Now, every time we talk about billionaire net worth, without fail, there are volunteer billionaire defenders in the comments saying the same exact thing: “That money is tied up in their stocks, Jeff Bezos only makes $80,000 a year and Elon Musk doesn’t take a salary - you don’t even know the difference between net worth and income!” First of all, the billionaire bootlicking festival was yesterday, you just missed it. And second, you’re wrong, and this is embarrassing for you.
The argument that Musk or any other billionaire can’t spend their billions because it’s tied up in stocks is so stupid because they do it all the time - funneling your net worth gains through charitable donation by donating stocks it’s actually one of the biggest ways that billionaires simultaneously avoid paying taxes and continue growing their net worth.
Elon Musk donated a quarter of a billion dollars in stocks, to the Musk Foundation - which is actually more of an untaxed checking account than it is a charity, but that’s frankly a different problem. It would take literally no effort for Musk to donate $6 billion dollars in stocks, just 2% to save 42 million people, today. Or all five ultra-billionaires could donate less than 1% each and end world hunger, right now.
The argument that there is some magic that prevents them from doing this is just an excuse to let people die because a bunch of sociopaths are hoarding unspendable amounts of stolen capital through a fake economy where the ultra-rich control the money supply and all the laws and regulations to create hyper-competition to collectively starve the poor so that they have to compete for scraps while creating trillions of dollars of wealth for billionaires who didn’t earn it and don’t pay taxes.
Musk’s fortune comes from exploitation, market manipulation, government subsidy, inherited wealth, and the pure momentum of a malignant system that is killing itself. These fortunes are self-sustaining and cancerous, there’s no other way to look at it. And frankly, defending the fact that one man made enough money in one day to end world hunger six times over is the most delusional god damn thing I’ve ever heard of.
