| This is not true and is a very common misunderstanding of modern wealth. Elon Musk owns hundreds of billions worth of stock. First, the value of those stocks varies from day to day. He can gain or lose billions of dollars in "net worth" on any given business day. Second, he is not free to sell that stock however and whenever he wants; he has to get approval from the boards of his various companies and is limited in the timing and amounts he can sell. Additionally, selling large amounts of stock causes the price to drop, AND dilutes his ownership in, and therefore control of, those companies. I think a lot of people have this stupid idea of Scrooge McDuck swimming in pool of cash, when they think about billionaires. That's not how it works, for most billionaires (I'm not sure about middle eastern oil royalty). In reality, businessman billionaires have most of their wealth in stock, and it is not liquid, and they borrow against the stock (i.e. use the stock as collateral for personal loans) and sell small percentages of it to finance their lifestyles. If you created a company, and it became wildly successful, and it was publicly traded, who should "own" the company? Should you be forced to divest, and therefore cede control to people who had no involvement in the company's initial success? Is that good for founders or for companies? How does it benefit society? Also note that profitability influences stock price, so taking away control from the people who made a company profitable, has a high likelihood of making the company less profitable, which in turn will almost certainly result in each stockholder becoming poorer. Remember that most stockholders aren't Elon Musks, they're John Q. Publics with a 401(k). |
Absolute clown