I don’t believe Elon is the richest man in the world. Whoever the richest person in the world is, common men and women wouldn’t be allowed to know who that is
Also, citizens united just legalized the bribery, the bribery will still happen with or without it
It’s probably PooTin anyway
Richest man that the IRS knows about
the twist there is the IRS knows, but they’re never going to speak a word of who it could be, because they’ll all be ki…I mean go to prison and kill themselves!..Just like everyone who has something damning to testify about
Honestly, it’s probably a Saudi.
Or royalty in UAE, Bahrain, or somewhere.
Whoever it is, where ever he or she is from. It’s probably a member of the WEF. Maybe that old droopy german guy, but most likely it’s someone much more reclusive we’ve never seen
The WEF is just TED talks for the obscenely rich. Conspiracy theorists give it way too much power.
It depends on how you define wealth. Vladimir Putin has de-facto control over all the natural resources of the world’s biggest country. He doesn’t have much money in bank accounts under his own name, and even if he did, his ability to spend that money would be limited because of sanctions. I would bet that if he wanted anything in the world, he could get it.
Then there’s the English royal family. Technically, they actually own all the land in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. When you buy land in those places, you’re actually leasing it from the crown. They can’t technically sell that land either though, so their ownership of it is moot. They have more direct control of some of the most prime real estate in England, and get direct rent from those leases. There are some legal above-board descriptions of what they acknowledge owning. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are holdings across the world that are more secret. The British crown controlled almost half the world less than a century ago. I would be shocked if when the British empire shrunk, they didn’t sneak some holdings into secret shell companies. But, the amount they can actually spend is pretty limited. The fully legit holdings are very carefully monitored, as is all their spending. If they spent money they’re not supposed to have, someone would investigate.
The people who are actually on the Forbes rich list are people who hold stock in public corporations. That information is fully public, so there’s no way for them to hide their wealth. People who have wealth through private companies and real-estate holdings generally don’t want to appear on those rich lists. They know it just makes them a target.
Having said that, hundreds of billions is a lot of money. Musk has roughly $1000 per American, and it’s exclusively his. Many empires in history had control of more “treasure”, but it was the empire’s wealth, and not separated out for the emperor to use as he pleased. Musk is in the unique position that his riches are entirely his, and he doesn’t need to share anything with the country’s treasury. So, I’d be surprised if there are many people with more wealth that’s truly their own wealth.
Also, I don’t think anybody knows who the richest person is. It’s not like it’s a secret being kept from the common folk. The rich people know more or less the same as we do. It’s not like they are open and honest with each-other. There are probably a lot of billionaires who manage to keep their name out of the news, but probably very few of them are centi-billionaires. That’s just an absurd amount of money, and it’s hard to control that much wealth and not leave a trace.
they actually own all the land in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. When you buy land in those places, you’re actually leasing it from the crown.
I live in Australia and I technically live on crown land.
Ahahaha one downvote - the contrast between the factual, informative, and insightful… vs. the embarrassment of giving education a thumbs down and walking away without a word.
Tremendous comment. Handily beat mine from a moment ago. (You’d’ve made my Sidebar point much better if it’d been your own)
It’s probably Putin or Mohammed bin Salman, if we’re talking about how much money they can personally move around. Or maybe even Trump, since there seems to be no one in the US to stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants.
100% not any of the offical world leaders, you’d be stupid to think otherwise
There is definitely room for debate on wealth rankings!
As far as data on billionaires’ assets goes, Forbes and Bloomberg would certainly like to think they have a handle on holdings, investments, and real estate… but of course, they’re not going to know just how much bullion is under Putin’s mattresses.
Sidebar!
I’ve come to form a perspective over the years: when I read something terrible, I find I can easily discover even more terrible claims that my first few search results can’t immediately confirm. And I actually worry that even a minute spent on the uncertain ‘maybes’ represents the loss of important time that could be dedicated to a known evil. (Plus, friends and the likeminded end up arguing even when they agree on up to 100% of everything important.)
Coming back to Reich’s point: Musk could be number one, number five, or number fifty.
In any case, the fact that individuals can blow unlimited cash in elections remains total garbage.
So you’re suggesting someone somehow owns hundreds of billions and yet nobody had connected these companies despite the name being there? Or the name isn’t there and it’s all other people to make it harder to detect, in which case they’re no more powerful or richer than putin or whatever, are they?
The bribery should be “illegal”. It makes it more negative when we hear about it.
Bribery happened before it was legal constantly, to think that making it illegal again would stop it from happening is just silly.
the elected officals, kings, queens and what have you of the world aren’t the ones who run everything. The people who REALLY control everything are totally unknown to the common man
Making it illegal let’s you do something about it when people are caught making and collecting bribes.
It was happening long before it was made legal and nothing was ever done to stop it.
Loads of politicians went to prison.
Making it illegal limits how much it happens. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Because everyone knows, if it was allowed to happen in the past, we’re not allowed to ever stop it from happening in the future …
That dude that invented bitcoin probably
Yup citizens United was the beginning of the fucking end.
That and the Patriot Act. W’s media image softening in the past few years has been particularly gross.
Reminds me of the suspension of habeas corpus. That alone was bone-chilling.
The bar got set way low. Even Madison is looking good these days.
What’s even more crazy is I bet it flashed through his head that it was “unfair” that even 25 million wasn’t enough to buy such a small election.
Imagine being the richest person in the world, anything and everything you want is at your fingertips.
Except true admiration.
So, you beg for attention on the internet from stangers.
Yes, I’m aware of the irony, that’s what we’re all doing here. But then, none of us can afford to buy the Presidency of The United States of America.
Eh, I hate attention… I just want to learn
What do you mean that’s what we’re all doing? I thought this was about discussion, sharing our passions and porn and stuff
Yeah. I left my 300k updoots on reddit to post here without doing it for karma.
And yes, the CEO of Dropout, Sam Reich, is Robert’s son.
As long as we have billionaires, we’ll have rulings like “citizens united”.
The only things about Elon I can think of that would please me more would be dead broke Elon. Or just plain dead Elon.
Well, imagine him being broke, homeless, despised by everyone and treated like interacting with him could lead you to the exclusion from the society. Warms your heart, doesn’t it? I don’t want him dead, I wish him worse. I want him thanking bums for pissing on him so he doesn’t lose more fingers to the frostbite and cursing himself for pushing for cutting social safety net.
I imagine him broke and doing Cameos and everyone makimg him say “Hello my daughter! Sorry your father is such a nazi piece of shit. You deserved a better father.”
You have changed my mind. Thank you.
Agreed.
Elon Musk obtained $213billion last year. Given a 40 hour work week, that means the $25million is about 15min of work. I kind of doubt he actually works that long, but I do not want to be too mean.
A little less conversation, a lotta more action. Direct action.
come on, man! they had SIGNS! they CHANTED! what more could you possibly ask of a country of fat idiots?
On the up side, nobody’s stock portfolio is hurting right now more than Musky’s is.
His stock portfolio is still worth more than any of us will see in a hundred thousand lifetimes. Doesn’t feel like an up side.
Tesla stock still up 5% from 1 month ago 🤷
e L on
How does one overturn citizens united without overturning the Constitution?
Interpretation of the constitution changes with the times.
And exactly how do you reinterpret The Constitution to reach your goal of overturning Citizens United?
Probably by getting judges who are simply willing to acknowledge corporations aren’t people.
Exactly this.
Amendment
Great. Thanks, Robert. Wonderful idea. Can’t believe we hadn’t thought of that already. Such insight. Much brain.
So the proposal is to eliminate the right to free association?
Elon Musk isn’t the richest man in the world. Not even close. The founder and CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, is the richest. #BlackRock is worth over 10 Trillion dollars and they own everything. Elon owns Twitter. Larry Fink owns all the news networks and oil companies, chemical companies, tobacco companies, military industrial companies. The list goes on forever. #LarryFink #Oligarchy
Is everyone just blatantly lying then? Because according to a google search, Elon Musk is worth 300+B, and Larry Fink is worth… 1.2B.
Are you taking the 10 Trillion number from
Founded in 1988, initially as an enterprise risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager, with US$11.5 trillion in assets under management as of 2024.
Because “assets under management” and “money that Larry Fink personally has” aren’t the same thing.
Or is this some conspiracy theory shit?
They used hashtags in the comment, makes me think it might just be a joke
Depends how much influence Blackrock exerts with their voting power.
Not a conspiracy or a theory or even a hypothesis. Fink is the founder and CEO of BlackRock which means it’s assets are his assets. BlackRock is a major shareholder in thousands of corporations and wealth management funds BlackRock has 10.5 Trillion dollars worth assets under management. Between BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street they basically own the planet. BlackRock / Fink could buy all of Elon Musk’s assets and burn them 100 times over and still have more than Elon Musk. BlackRock is the principle shareholder in many news organizations and or their parent companies. Fox is the only major network that has, NOT BlackRock, as their biggest shareholder but BlackRock is number 2 at Fox.
Fink is the founder and CEO of BlackRock which means it’s assets are his assets.
It’s a publicly traded company, so no. It’s assets are not his assets.
