I’ve been asked by a friend to review and share my opinion on this video. So I’ve said yes and wanted to list down my arguments in this post.
If anyone on the internet is reading this post, it’s important for you to know that I might be biased, as I am admire Elon Musk, but for the facts and statements presented in this article, all you need is common sense.
1:30 - “The rich get richer they tend to take more of your resources that you need” - This is a very egregious claim. If you were to compare the net worth of the top ten individuals (as of 11 Feb 2025) they
| Rank | Name | Net Worth (in USD) | Companies/Assets Associated With |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Elon Musk | $391.3 B | Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter (X), Neuralink, The Boring Company |
| 2 | Mark Zuckerberg | $247.5 B | Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) |
| 3 | Jeff Bezos | $246.0 B | Amazon, Blue Origin |
| 4 | Larry Ellison | $220.8 B | Oracle Corporation, Tesla (stakeholder) |
| 5 | Bernard Arnault & family | $183.0 B | LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennessy) |
| 6 | Larry Page | $154.1 B | Google (Alphabet), investments in tech startups |
| 7 | Sergey Brin | $147.1 B | Google (Alphabet), investments in tech startups |
| 8 | Warren Buffett | $146.9 B | Berkshire Hathaway |
| 9 | Amancio Ortega | $123.3 B | Zara (Inditex Group) |
| 10 | Steve Ballmer | $122.3 B | Microsoft, Los Angeles Clippers |
The total amount is about $1.98 trillion
From purely monetary perspective, if were to compare the amount to the GDP of countries, these people combined network is greater than 166 countries by this source, which had GDP data from 2022 (I couldn’t find today’s GDP data, so used 2022)
So, if a median person on the planet makes 50,000 USD and has a net worth of about \~500,000 USD
So, does this mean Elon Musk will eat - 7,82,000 times more calories than you. Or will consume any resources 7,82,000 more than an average person on the planet? Noo!
2:53- The Rich get more real-estate so you get less. Another absurd claim..
I’ll guarantee you that people who are in the 95 percentile or higher in London or in UK own about 90% of the real-estate there and the ultra-rich he is referencing would have less than <2% of the land. Additionally, I’m not even accounting for the amount of land that’s government owned.
3.18 - Bro claims he studied economics in London School of Economics and gives such retarded takes.
4:00 - claims that working for the public government you’d earn less money, and if you were to work for the rich you’d get at least twice or thrice the money. Another stupid claim, there are only a finite number of rich people according to him, so not everyone would get the chance to work for the rich. Additionally, it’s almost impossible for anyone started fresh out of grad to work of the rich, as they value quality work and brand value. You’d have to be in the top .1 percentile of your field to even get recognised in the first place
9:33 - Claims that Trump would give Tesla and Elon the taxpayer money. On the contrary, the Federal EV Credit of $7,500 that has been put in place in 2008, overhauled in 2022 would be removed by Trump. So, how is Trump planning on giving Tesla money? Trump for the most of his career in politics has been an anti-EV guy, FYI. However, now I don’t know where his opinion stands.
10:15 - Why is Elon support anti-immigration right-wing parties? (Writing this commentary before he makes the point)
Elon clearly states that he was always a centrist when it comes to the policies preached by both the left and right-wing parties. Most of the media empire was and is still biased to the stories of left-wing parties this includes all major media from CNN, CNBC, and BBC as well.
10:30 - “living standards are falling” - this is a false statement.
- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/human-development-index
- https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/distribution-of-population-between-different-poverty-thresholds-historical
12:14 - Yes, politics would significantly change if they were transparent and actually used the internet to make their data more public. The public was and always rallying for changes for betterment, it’s not something that started after COVID
12:50 - I’m not sure if he is aware, but Elon paid the largest tax in the entire world, almost about ~$12 billion rando sourceSo, is that not enough? How much would be a satisfactory amount. Additionally, does he know why he actually had to pay the tax? Know more about the tax
13:16 - He also claims that “The Rich” preach that “The reason you’re poor is because of the immigrants”. Okay, why didn’t you even a single person’s name who mentions this that are rich? I can make up such invisible groups a ton. Immigrants can be loosely-classified into two categories skilled immigrants and non-skilled immigrants (blue collar workers)
For the skilled immigrants - they is always a deficit of required skilled workforce for any market in a country. This is one of the major factors that affect the growth rate of a country. If you’re actually having a higher skilled immigration in your country, it positively affects you as a citizen of a country. It’s not a zero-sum game. Just because a guy from India got the job you’re applying for at a corporate tech company doesn’t mean immigration is a net negative affect in your country. He/She got the job because they showed they were proficient and adept for the job.
For the non-skilled immigrants - I haven’t looked or spent enough time understanding how this effects the macro-economy of a country or any case-studies compared to skilled-immigration. So I’d refrain myself from judging.
17:12 - casually says that Elon (said Trump, but corrected in comments) supports high-levels of immigration. This is not the whole-truth, Elon specially said that the number of super-smart people are less and would gladly allow any super-smart person to get immigrated into the United States. (Super-smart might seem weird, but they would usually be the people who invent, innovate, or in .1 percentile of the industry, high IQ, etc)
General Commentary
- In general, I believe this is just a puff-piece to use Elon’s name for more views, and vent very vaguely without any proper factual arguments. I can easily prove that because this is his highest viewed video, which reached 1.2 Million views in 3 weeks, whereas his next best video is 992K views which is 1 year old.
- The basic principle in economics is that if all the goods and services can be drawn in a pie chart. The pie chart itself will grow in size every year. The size of the pie chart is never the same. As more goods and services are produced the monetary value pertaining to those increases.
- So, if were you to just measure the monetary value, its never a apples-to-apples comparison. If you were trying to compare the net worth of a technological company to a net worth of media company. It won’t work. Because they serve different “markets”, and these “markets” decide the worthiness of the entity and price it.