[RIMR]

I hear this muddy defense of billionaires every time anyone tries to compare the wealth held by the working class vs. the ruling class, and it's pure BS.

A billionaire's net worth is measured in dollars. If that isn't a valid unit of measuringing their wealth, then find another way to measure it. The theoretical loss in stock price if they sell their holdings shouldn't factor in here, because it isn't universally true, and doesn't actually change the real-world value of their assets.

I too cannot liquidate my entire net worth without selling my house and car, cashing out my retirement accounts, and spending lots of fees in the process. Regardless, my net worth is still measured in the dollars those things are worth before I liquidate them, because that's how wealth is measured.

Musk spent $44B buying a website that has since plummeted in value, and his net worth has only skyrocketed since. It seems like wealth for billionaires does indeed work differently than wealth for the rest of us, and it is fact MORE forgiving for billionaires than it is for us.

[finolex1]

1. It's not a defense, just an observation.

2. Transaction costs for liquidating your wealth is materially different from selling enough to significantly affect the market for an asset. As an extreme example, large holders of a meme cryptocurrency cannot sell the majority of their holdings without crashing the value of their coin.

3. Borrowing works for smaller amounts if you can spread out the sales of your assets over a long period of time (or if you don't need to sell at all, e.g. if investing in something that gives you returns).

[manzu]

you fail to see that their net worth is dependent on everybody else’s actions: if the combined shareholders of their companies start selling for whatever reason, what happens to musk’s net worth? the only way that rich people are rich is because other people want to get rich on their succes and that’s why they buy in. regardless of the real value produced, net worth is much like influencer reach.

[cool_dude85]

No, this is true for most random people. My net worth is largely tied up in assets like my car and house - if everybody else decides these are worthless, because I live in a "bad neighborhood", or if they decide that they prefer new cars way more, I stand to lose huge proportions of my net worth.

[Kirby64]

This is no less true for the average person. If the real estate market in your area crashes and you own a house, your net worth would crash through other peoples collective action.

The only difference is that most of these billionaires are invested in a few specific companies, however there are plenty of people who (likely for bad reason) are also heavily invested in only a few companies.