cammy said oops

If Elon Musk liquidated his entire wealth tomorrow and gave all his money to the poor it would legitimately be a disaster for humanity. Trillions of dollars in wealth would be incinerated, multiple companies at the frontier of human technological advancement would be destroyed, human space exploration would be set back decades. And for what? Most people would just use the money on drugs, porn, crypto and online sports gambling. Destroy SpaceX, Tesla, xAI so that idiots can spend a $200 Elon stimmy cheque on OnlyFans and online sports gambling. The worst trade off in history. Consider actual reality here. Elon’s wealth is tied up in shares so if he tried to liquidate all his positions at once, the stock price would immediately crash, destroying trillions in value for normal middle class people whose pensions rely on stock market growth. Ultimately Elon could probably only recover 10-15% of the headline $850 billion figure if he tried to immediately go liquid. Then you would have to divide that up across hundreds of million of people. If you tried to target the poorest people on Earth - those earning less than $3 a day - you would have to try distribute about $100 billion to 800 million people. About $120 each. Logistically you would lose at least 20-30% of that on last mile delivery: banking fees, security, fraud, identifying the poor, preventing corruption. So you end up getting $90 to 800 million seperate people. That is one month of income. The equivalent of a COVID stimmy cheque in a rich world country. Did COVID stimmy cheques solve the problem of poverty in the US? No, of course not, because one time infusions of cash are not enough to end poverty. Even if you kept the program just within the United States it would largely be pointless. Divide 100 billion across the 40 million Americans below the federal poverty line - you get a $2500 payment per person. Roughly the equivalent of two COVID stimmy cheques. Not exactly world changing stuff. Studies show that significant amounts of money from COVID stimmy cheques in America and Australia went directly to non-essential spending - gambling, day trading, crypto, online porn. Studies from Australia show that when people were allowed to liquidate their superannuation (retirement fund savings) during COVID, they spent massive amounts on gambling. Up to 11% of all funds withdrawn from superannuation went towards online gambling. Sadly the reality is that many poor people do not know how to manage money. If you think the poor are only poor due to lack of money, you’re an idiot. Poverty is unfortunately far more complex than that, which is why so many poor people who win the lottery wind up going broke. Elon could liquidate everything tomorrow, destroy all his companies. The end result would be a redistribution of wealth away from productive enterprises (companies pushing the frontier of human knowledge and civilizational advancement) towards some of the most non-productive ends imaginable: organised crime, drugs, prostitution, porn, online gambling. Legitimate world historic disaster. I would rather Elon keep the money.