Thursday, October 1, 2026
After Elon Musk’s SpaceX went public, the entrepreneur catapulted to become the first trillionaire in world history.
Many folks, from socialists down to the average working stiff, are outraged, claiming that no individual should have so much money. But you can count me in the camp, along with National Review’s Charles Cooke, that celebrates when an American can create a product that is so universally coveted that he or she earns unlimited money.
As I noted in my book “Solutions to America’s Problems,” class envy is a very dangerous thing. We shouldn’t be focusing so much on what others are making as we should on our ability to move up the social ladder to a higher quality of life.
Who cares if some people are getting super-rich if economic growth means that you and I and everyone else are making more money as well?
There’s nothing virtuous about having every citizen equally poor, as is the case in Cuba or North Korea (with the exception, of course, of their ruling classes in the Communist Party, who live large).
Jeff Bezos became a billionaire because he revolutionized how we shop. He made it convenient for us to stay at home and get stuff delivered. The inventor of Uber made billions because he gave millions of people access to cheaper transportation.
Steve Jobs became super-rich because he invented the iPhone and the iPad, which revolutionized communication. Elon Musk created PayPal, Tesla and now SpaceX. If people didn’t want to invest in his products, he wouldn’t make so much money.
I’ve never had a problem with basketball’s LeBron James making $40 million a year, because he’s worth it to the team owners since he brings in so much revenue.
The problem, of course, is when our economy is stagnant, and we see some people getting super-rich while the middle and working classes are struggling. That’s the case today, because the inflation beast has not yet been tamed.
But inflation is roaring not because Elon Musk became a trillionaire, but rather because of foolish government policies that simply spent, and wasted, too much money.
As was proven in the Kennedy, Reagan and first Trump administrations, cutting taxes and incentivizing investment creates a thriving economy that results in benefit to all. In each of those time periods, wages and wealth grew for the working and middle classes after across-the-board tax cuts were enacted.
What’s especially galling is that new multimillionaires like Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Kimmel complain that no one should be a billionaire, let alone a trillionaire. It’s particularly galling coming from Kimmel, who has a net worth of over $50 million.
In the wealth-envy game, everything is relative. It’s obnoxious to Kimmel that someone can be a billionaire, but it might be just as revolting to someone making $50,000 a year that someone like Kimmel could have $50 million simply for telling jokes on late-night TV.
And then there’s Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton, who dates Kim Kardashian. He, too, has said that no one should be a billionaire. Someone should remind him that he himself is worth half a billion, and the woman he’s sleeping with has a net worth of $2 billion. When do we start confiscating her wealth to bring her under a billion?
So chill out on the news that Elon is making so much money. He’s got a product people want. If they didn’t want it, they wouldn’t invest, and he wouldn’t make that kind of money.
And beware of setting some kind of limit on what people can make, because what might be unreasonable to you may come back to bite you when someone making far less than you starts coming after your wealth because he or she feels that it’s just too unreasonable. Hear that, Jimmy Kimmel?
Steve Levy is president of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He has served as Suffolk County executive, as an assemblyman and as host of the “On the Right Side” podcast, and is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.”
