Okay hear me out. SpaceX. Not a very successful name as compared to NASA. Microsoft. Apple. Amazon or any Chinese space industries. Same goes for Tesla. There are way bigger car brands like Toyota or honda or Bugatti if we are going big. But think about it. Why arnt the owners of these brands the richest person. When they are clearly more successful and prominent… same goes with starlink. All of elons companies aren’t world wide. So how is he the richest. And plus. Him loosing billions of worth of stocks in a span of days dropping from 1T isn’t normal is it…
Are we being lied to?
For one thing, nobody owns, like, General Motors, or Apple. Or rather, they’re publicly traded, and I probably own some of it indirectly, and you could buy some of it for a few dollars, yourself. Lot’s of people don’t seem to get this - a company owned by one guy, or even mostly by one guy, happens, but it’s not really the main part of the Western economy, anymore.
Bill Gates was in the lead for a long time, and it’s true Microsoft is how he made is money, but he’s down to holding 0.5% of it at this point. The biggest individual owner is Steve Ballmer, at ~5%.
Someone else more qualified would have to answer in detail why Elon Musk’s stake in several companies are worth more than another guy’s stake in several companies, but that’s the gist. It got that way, because he got lucky a few times in a row. That’s how inequality is made, in general.