What Elon Musk is teaching us about billionaires
slate.com
slate.com
In a way, I have to say that I see Jeff Bezos currently blazing trails for Musk to merge onto in the future. But in another way, Bezos is going to owe a huge debt to Musk.
Musk's recent actions helped put Bezos squarely back in his comfort zone as an introvert and pushed him further away from public scrutiny. This allowed Bezos to work at his current philanthropic projects & new relationship in a comparatively morally superior mindset.
Bezos will likely watch AMZN hit new highs in '24 or '25 just in time to leapfrog Musk's shrinking world and show up as the "good example" alternative-billionaire.
If he can sort his stuff out, that is--Bezos' new civility-award system[1] seems weirdly like it is aimed at reconciling his personal love/hate feelings, but by projecting his weaknesses onto others, unfortunately. (I'd personally like to see him step in and identify more with the morals of the plebs he's attempting to lead, if he's going to nail this civility thing. IMO Bezos has massively untapped pleb-strengths to his personality if he'd only let himself go there authentically, dropping some of the higher ideals in the process, even.)
Musk on the other hand is so far away from Civility Awards, he might as well have already started his own Mars colony.
On top of that, Musk has waded into a personal zone of unskilled work (management of relational dynamics & discourse with groups he doesn't own outright) using tools he's comfortable with (leaning into ever-expanding perception of control). This is not working out well, of course.
Musk cannot control leaderless groups the same way he thinks he can control individuals & groups with clear leaders. The same tools do not apply there.
If politicians get more of a foothold in this divide between Musk & audience, it will not be good for Musk.
My guess is he will eventually slice off a small part of the pie and leave the party, so to speak. And a party-leaving, muted, quiet Musk is not a happy Musk by any stretch.
However I think if Bezos finds a successful way forward into philanthropy, Musk _might_ ride those coattails back into a more sensible billionaire phase.
(Likely without giving credit of course)
The biggest + for Bezos is that Musk makes Bezos look like a comparatively sane and nice person (which on an absolute scale he really isn't).