Elon Musk – The World’s First Trillionaire – Makes America and His Employees Wealthier – AMAC – The Association of Mature American Citizens
It’s official. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) for SpaceX this week showed Elon Musk’s rocket company worth somewhere in the vicinity of $2.1 trillion dollars. Given that on Friday, June 12, the first day of trading, shares went from $150 and ended around $161, Musk’s majority share in the company (as well as Tesla) means that his personal wealth is now more than one trillion dollars.
Democrats and the left are mortified. As usual, however, their performative outrage doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense if you take their stated reasons for it seriously. Their reaction makes much more sense if you see them as motivated by personal envy and frustration at the fact that Musk made his wealth by making real things that benefit the country. He makes products that work, employs over 100,000 people (and many more through second-order effects) and has made thousands of them wealthy for their labor.
Forbes immediately published a collection of the most unhinged responses from the usual suspects. Senator Liz “Fauxcahontas” Warren (estimated net worth: $8 million) immediately lamented that the “typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk’s level of wealth.” Senator Ed Markey (estimated net worth: $2.5 million) groused, “While working people struggle to get by, the billionaire class is becoming the TRILLIONAIRE class.”
Of course, there are many, many more examples of politicians and political activists who are multimillionaires but who, like Liz and Ed, are mysteriously no longer worried about millionaires but instead only billionaires and trillionaires. Never mind that these estimated net worths would put them in the top 10 percent (Markey) and top five percent (Warren) of Americans in 2026.
Representative Ro Khanna is perhaps the most egregious. He jumped in to wail that “Musk is worth more than South Africa’s GDP” and that “Wealth inequality is the moral failure of our time.” These complaints are better read as laments that the vulgar Musk, so clearly beneath them in their own minds, is worth more than they are.
One wonders if Khanna lashes himself in penitence at night for his own estimated $232.7 million fortune. Of course, even if one takes his claimed net worth of $27 million as more accurate (the sticking points seem to be how much his wife’s family fortune provides the couple), this puts Khanna firmly in the top one percent of Americans.
I have yet to hear of the Khanna family divesting their own wealth to others less fortunate as he seems to want Musk to do – or rather, as he wants the government to do to Musk. It’s a safe bet that he really is worried about “wealth inequality.” Yet the inequality he fears is that between himself, a one-percenter, and those in the top point-one percent.
That wouldn’t sound good, however. So, rich Democrats such as Khanna and Bernie Sanders have offered a proposal for a five percent tax on wealth that could in one year, Khanna insists, provide “free public college & trade school,” “$10/day childcare,” and “Special-needs education nationwide.” Markey claims taxing Musk alone “would fund every community health center in America for the next 26 years.” Going off the demagogue script, he intones: “I’ll say it again. Tax the rich.”
To those born yesterday, this no doubt sounds great. But two problems pop up for anybody who has any experience of the world.
The first is that our government doesn’t use our money very wisely now. Democrats really have no interest in stopping the massive fraud scandals now engulfing Medicaid, hospice care, and countless other federal programs. And what doesn’t go to fund the Somali “Learing Center” will no doubt go to some other boondoggle that doesn’t produce anything.
Anyone remember how Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s three years and $7.5 billion of work on electric vehicle charging stations only resulted in eight operational stations by 2024 out of a proposed 500 thousand to be completed by 2030? Nobody ought to trust the grandiose promises of Democrats about what they can do if they were to have more money. They, after all, are the ones who put up most of the red tape that then excuses their failure to finish anything they start.
The second, and bigger, problem with those braying to “tax the rich” is that they seem not to understand the nature of wealth today—and, especially, Elon Musk’s wealth. Democrats like to paint a picture of the “rich” as if they were Donald Duck’s uncle, Scrooge McDuck. Uncle Scrooge kept all his money in a vault, to which he would retire to bathe in his coins, paper notes, and jewels.
While Musk doesn’t likely sweat eating out on the weekend or traveling, he doesn’t keep his wealth in a vault. Nor is he “hoarding” the world’s resources, as so many leftists keep claiming. As Musk said in an X post in February about objections to his wealth, “My ‘net worth’ is almost entirely due to my ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. I have <0.1% that is cash.”
In other words, Musk would rather keep pouring his own money into the stocks that fund the amazing work he’s doing with electric cars, robots, satellites, rocket ships, and more.
Responding to a Bernie Sanders statement on the dangers to “our democracy… when one man, who contributed $290 million to get Trump elected, becomes $700 billion richer since Trump’s election,” the X account @tetsuoai replied that this one man is: “a guy who catches rockets out of the sky with chopsticks and beams internet to every dead zone on the planet. Same guy ships cars that drive themselves, humanoid robots for the factory floor, brain chips that let paralyzed people move a cursor with pure thought, and an AI running on a supercomputer his team stood up in months instead of years.” He concludes, “You cannot legislate a rocket into orbit.”
Americans can be grateful to Musk for all these developments that enrich us. They can also be grateful monetarily. In that February post about his wealth, Musk said that “Tesla and SpaceX employees all receive stock/options and Tesla is >80% owned by retail investors and index/pension funds, so value increases apply >80% to them.” That list means that ordinary people like you and me with 401k and 403b plans that invest in Musk’s businesses all benefit. It also means that Musk’s employees benefit the most of all.
SpaceX employs about 22,000 people. Among all his companies, Musk is responsible for over 127,000 jobs. Given that these employees receive stock options and can opt to buy more with their paychecks, Musk has done far more to improve the lives of the blue-collar workers Democrats claim to love.
Indeed, mainstream outlets reported that the SpaceX IPO minted at least 4,000 new millionaires among current and former SpaceX employees who took stock options, including welders, machinists, and cafeteria workers. Another 400 employees are now centimillionaires—they crossed the $100 million threshold.
An economy isn’t a pie of fixed size. It’s something that can be grown. Elon Musk has increased the size of the pie, allowing countless people to eat much better. It’s no wonder Democrats are eating their hearts out.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X @davidpdeavel.
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Here’s a fact: when you’re wealthy, it’s easy to get wealthier. Money makes money. I respect Musk, not for his wealth, but what he’s doing with it to get wealthier. Instead of being a goon that uses his wealth to inflict political harm and profit by it (Soros) his companies improve our future.
So, as my wife and I enjoy a good retirement with an adequate, fixed, income that we worked hard for, I applaud Elon Musk and wish him continued success. No envy here!
I would like to sit down and have a beer with the guy sometime.
Isn’t it interesting that politicians keep raising the wealth bar as they themselves get rich but try to present themselves as “ordinary” as their paycheck to paycheck constituents? Only in America can a person be cheered on to succeed only to be sneered at for actually doing it. The question most zealots fail to ask is how can I get a piece of that pie? Instead it’s “not fair” and a democrat rallying cry made only to point to billionaires and now a trillionaire. Dems don’t want any attention drawn to their ill gotten millions off a public servants salary, but instead they whine about those really, really rich people. Typical democrat hypocrisy.
Tax the rich will not work as long as politicians and government is in charge of the money, it will flow like water between their fingers with nothing to show for it except their own bank accounts being larger. Money would have to be put in the hands of those who know how to treat it and handle it. and use it wisely, where it truly shows improvement. Politician will steel it, ordinary Joe will blow it.
How much do you want to bet these whining Democrats put money into the SpaceX IPO?
More power to Elon Musk and all of those who amass wealth. They create jobs and they have done it through hard work and vision. I am all for anyone who works hard and is successful. That’s the AMERICAN WAY! The left wants us to all be serfs and peasants while they wallow in their own wealth! My wife and I are living comfortably on fixed incomes and have no problems with those who make fortunes. Again that’s the AMERICAN WAY not the vision of the CORRUPT left!
Millionaire socialist liberals just crack me up! He has more money than they do and that is bad! Remember when Bernie Sanders shook his bony little finger a millionaires and billionaires? As soon as he became a millionaire he dropped that one off the list It was okay since he had his. They are such hypocrites. Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren is worth almost 8 million not bad for a socialist who lied to get into law school
Go Elon!
Jealousy benefits no one, and that’s all the Democrats and socialists have to offer. Somebody please tell me what any of these complainers have done to improve the lot of humanity. I have found nothing. The whole lot need to be shipped to China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, almost anywhere in Africa or the Middle East, Iran, Russia or some other fun spot where they can spew their nonsense.
Good for Elon, he worked hard, took the risk and he provides a lot of good paying jobs, and he is helping build a stronger America!
Carry on Elon Musk, if I was younger, I would beg you for a job!
God Bless America!
AT 81,SURE WISH I COULD WORK FOR ELON!
Pay no attention to Sanders and Warren or anyone else. They never mention their billionaire supporters like Soros or Pritzker or Hoffman. Sanders et al are being paid by these billionaires to oppose Musk. After all Musk is making the common man rich and they can’t stand that. They lose all control over them and they don’t want that. They are negative in anything Trump does. They hate this country that much. Why have they been dumbing down education in this country and stepped over to communist indoctrination. They have an army of paid protesters to oppose Trump’s agenda. An agenda based on the people prospering. On living in a safe world by neutralizing Iran and achieving stability in the Middle East. Restoring law and order in this country. Going after fraud and finding the 450,000 children Autopen Biden lost to the pedophiles and sex trade in this country. I think that should be addressed much more than Musk creating jobs and products useful to this country. Only the democrats don’t want America to succeed they want to destroy her. Most Americans will have to live 8 lifetimes to have what Warren has or Sanders. They have nothing to complain about and they don’t speak for me. Why haven’t they created what Musk has then they would be richer too. Envy speaks loud and clear in these statements. Let me tell you something Musk might be a trillionaire on paper but most of that money is not in his bank account he puts it back into the next project he comes up with. To benefit mankind. The workers who benefit America who benefits and the trickle down effect from that. Only these democrats are too stupid too negative and too hateful to say anything else. They want to bring America down anyway they can.
If Musk had STAYED in South Africa with its socialist, racist government, he wouldn’t be a Trillionaire! These socialist DIMMs NEVER tell the truth that they want everyone [but them] to be “equally” poor! They all have reached the top and now want to take the ladder away so others cannot follow!
Left does not know what a work really is, it claims to stand up and fight for working man, it needs him, without his support it would wither and were forced to work for a living, at the same time it can’t stand the success, thus the new rules in schools, sports etc. Every loser is a winner, true winner will not be tolerated, he shows them how incompetent and impotent they are. Pathetic, parasitic ,sucking the soul out of the nation. Envious, vindictive, small.
I am not rich by any means, have many things in my home that need repairs, health issues that are hard to keep up with, some foods are too expensive to buy, so I live paycheck to paycheck; but, I applaud what Elon Musk has been able to do and I pray that he is able to continue growing and expanding his ideas and productivity to help those less fortunate. Musk’s accomplishments have entertained me and make me wonder. He deserves every penny he makes. God bless Elon Musk.
Excellent article!!! It needs to be posted everywhere!
Spread to subcontractors & vendors
I lost $56 on my initial investment in SpaceX. Lol!
Well it does not matter what the socialist say about Elon Musk, because he made his wealth thru the companies he created.
What matters is how did those socialist liberal demoncrats become so wealthy on a senator’s or congressmen salary. That is what needs to be looked at and investigated, like AOC, when she got into office according to her she could barely make ends meet and now after a few years in congress, her finances are well into over a million dollars. HOW?
A great article, again, this by Mr. Deavel. So very informative. Has anyone noticed only the dims are ranting about the rich; never saying how they earned their money on such a congressional salary. They do not even have <0.1% of Musk’s intelligence, nor his work ethic. They are just trying to appeal to lesser informed voter. Its just sickening to think we have individuals in our government who are this jealous and yes wicked.
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