this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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[–] Furbag@lemmy.world 17 points 8 hours ago (8 children)

If he were stupid he would not be the richest man in the world

No, stop.

You are conflating wealth with intelligence.

Do you know how easy it is to have money multiply itself in high enough quantities? It's hard to overstate just how difficult it would be to have the wealth of Elon Musk and somehow not make money. You would have to make several multi-million dollar bad investments per day for decades, and even then, you're still not likely to run out of cash any time soon. If Elon Musk did absolutely nothing for the rest of his life (and god, we could only hope) the interest and dividends his wealth passively generates for him would be enough for all of his children and grandchildren to live lavishly luxurious lives.

Elon is not a genius. He's actually a complete fucking moron who got very, very lucky and has excellent timing. If it were not for the success of PayPal in the early dotcom days, we would never have heard from this guy again.

[–] ravinggerbil@lemm.ee 1 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

Still not an Elon apologist, just so we’re clear.

If it were that easy, why is he the one who’s “done it the best” so far? Definitely speaking loosely here.

The ability to keep and grow money and businesses is not a trait of a stupid man. He did have seed capital from his family, as all these billionaires do, but it seems Elon has been able to do more with it, to the point that he is now acting Emperor. Whatever you think of the finance violations, fraud or sexual favors he did to get there, he has shown an aptitude for consolidating power. He’s going to fuck everything up for us, yes. But he and his friends are going to achieve their goals doing it. We do ourselves a disservice by writing these people off as stupid when they’re calculating and evil.

[–] undrwater@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"Don't underestimate..." may be the language you are looking for.

There are many types of intelligences. He has a high level in at least one. Quite low in others.

[–] ravinggerbil@lemm.ee 2 points 3 hours ago

That would have been helpful to include, yes. Thank you. Don’t underestimate the man because that’s how he wins even easier.

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