Yes, there can be resets that deplete the wealth of the wealthy but that doesn't account for the rise of the middle class in the 20th century.
See Lottery winners.
A favorite occurrence of this is when the Chinese Communists dispossessed the landowner/nobility to zero. The descendants of these dispossessed pre-revolutionary elites have since regained their social advantage. The heredity of human capital persists.
I argued that he could liquefy substantial amounts of his assets and still have enough left to maintain his wealth. Nothing you have written says otherwise. His offer of a million dollars in a lottery for voters to vote for his candidate alone was an example of this. I don't think he is losing control of his companies by the stream of money he spends to make the world a worse place.
That is democracy. Musk is just one voter, but with a similar influence.
Of course businesses want to pollute away, and gain an advantage over companies that do not spend money to pollute. They also want to form conglomerates to shut out competition: all 'red tape'. That every business owner wants to remove red tape is not putting Musk in a better light.
Musk unleashed his DOGE minions among other things to kill off enforcement of environmental protection, and he supports extreme right wing policies everywhere in the world. Can you mention a an extreme right wing party that supports environmental policies?
We are taking about a single man with an influence not much less than 77 million voters.
That Musk thought he could work with an idiot president to just support his business, make the poor poorer, support racism, and reduce 'red tape' without risking some other catastrophe was naive.
Did Musk at any time support competent lawmakers with integrity?
www.ifre.com
www.propublica.org
The middle class is much older than the industrial revolution. In fact, I would say that having a sizeable middle class with disposable funds to invest but no means to invest it in traditional assets was a neccessary prerequisite.
musk doesn't need to sell stock to access cash, he has billions of dollars of personal debt pledged against his tesla stock
Third of Musk’s Tesla shares tied up in margin loans | IFR
People & Markets Lending terms remain conservative despite large number of shares pledged
No. The claim was that Musk 'undermines environmental policies everywhere', not 'the environment'. Your article says:-
Not much there. Any large industrial site is bound to have some problems. Your 'more comprehensive list' cites a few minor issues with The Boring Company, xAI gas turbines - which we already know about, SpaceX, and Tesla.here's a more comprehensive list of the environmental regulations dodged by his companies
Elon Musk Has Criticized Environmental Regulations. Here’s How His Companies Have Been Accused of Sidestepping Them.
Musk considers environmental regulation a barrier to innovation. As he eyes a new project in Houston, here’s what to know about some of his companies’ past projects that have faced scrutiny from regulators and environmental advocates.
In your attempt to show that others are as bad as Musk you only make the problem worse.
And then what?
I don't disagree with you but it doesn't negate the fact that the mid 20th century with its large middle class is more likely an anomaly than the norm.
