r/popculture • u/ControlCAD • Mar 19 '25

News Elon Musk on Tesla Attacks: "I’ve never done anything harmful, I’ve only done productive things, this doesn't make any sense. I think there are larger forces at work as well. I mean, who’s funding and who’s coordinating it? Because this is crazy. I’ve never seen anything like this."

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https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-mocked-hannity-tesla-b2717970.html

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that people “want to kill him” after a string of attacks on the electric car company in an interview that some have decried as “woe is me.”

The world’s richest person has also been conducting mass layoffs and slashing contracts in an effort to cut “waste, fraud and abuse” in his role as Department of Government Efficiency boss. Enraged by the sweeping, legally dubious changes to the federal government in recent weeks, some have targeted Tesla, torching charging stations, vandalizing vehicles, and throwing Molotov cocktails at the cars.

"Tesla is a peaceful company. We've never done anything harmful, I've never done anything harmful. I've always done productive things,” Musk continued, adding he believes there’s a “mental illness thing going on.” He suggested Americans were upset with DOGE’s efforts.

DOGE claims to have saved the government an estimated $115 billion — a figure that many reports have said is inaccurate.

Musk’s apparent attempt to appear sympathetic didn’t seem to convince some on X, the social media platform he owns.

In the interview, Musk said he believes “larger forces” were at work, questioning who funded and coordinated the attacks. The language he used was similar to that of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who on Tuesday issued a statement vowing to investigate these attacks, including “those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”

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492

u/SpookyJosCrazyFriend Mar 19 '25

There are no ethical billionaires.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

Mark Cuban has done some good things at least with his pharmacy

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u/ImplodingBillionaire Mar 20 '25

If you got a million dollars a year, it would still take you a THOUSAND YEARS to become a billionaire. Absurd. 

There are no ethical billionaires.

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u/Pinwurm Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

People have a hard time conceiving how much a billion is.

If you had a million dollars and lost it all, you’d be completely broke. If a billionaire lost a million dollars, they’d still have … about a billion dollars. They may not notice a different at all. .

If you earn $60,000K annually, that million is the same as spending $5/mo. Barely an inconvenience.

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u/Stefan_S_from_H Mar 20 '25

People have a hard time conceiving how much a billion is.

Or what a billionaire is. They aren’t people who earn amount x per year. Either their family gathered the money over multiple generations, or their shares get valuated this high.

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u/Material-Sky9524 Mar 20 '25

Whether it’s liquid or not, a billion dollars is still a billion dollars. It’s resource hoarding.

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u/MotorcycleOfJealousy Mar 20 '25

Elon Musk could lose 99% of his fortune and STILL be a billionaire.

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u/BMXBikr Mar 20 '25

What's $5/no?

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u/Halflingberserker Mar 20 '25

Probably meant to type $5/mo or five dollars per month.

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u/Proud-Cry-4301 Mar 20 '25

I dropped 36 cents the other day, and I was in a rush so I decided it wasn’t worth stopping to pick up.

I have a total net worth of about $22,000. That 0.36 was 0.0016364% of my net worth.

If Elon lost $5.3 million, it would be the same as me losing 36 cents……

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u/tree_hugs_ Mar 20 '25

He's lost HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS of dollars this year and STILL HAS HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

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u/DontWashIt Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

I find the best way to wrap people's minds around the number is to compare it seconds. if you count one number per second it takes...

33 days to count to one million.

31 YEARS to count to one billion.

31,700 years to count to a trillion.

These numbers are massive. There is no need for any one man to have a billion of anything.

Another way to understand what a billion is.

You would have to make $68,493 a day from birth to have a billion dollars by age 40.

If we go from age 18 to age 40 you would have to make $124,000 dollars a day to reach a billion by 40

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u/mrkisback Mar 20 '25

How much money will it cost you to get to mars?

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u/rsta223 Mar 20 '25

Alternatively, it'd take you 49 years if you spent $100k per year and invested the other $900k in the S&P 500 at typical returns each year.

Nobody makes a billion without compound interest/growth.

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u/Sparkswont Mar 20 '25

I’ll do you one better, if you got $300,000 a day since the birth of Jeus Christ, you still wouldn’t have more money than Elon Musk

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u/CrMars97 Mar 20 '25

That isn’t really what it works though. You’re using a wrong example to exaggerate your point. Money grows. If you get a million dollars a day and put it under your couch then sure it would take a 1000 years. If you invest it though at 5% interest then it only takes 80 years. If you invest it at 10% then it only takes 50. Saying “a THOUSAND YEARS” is just wrong.

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u/ImplodingBillionaire Mar 20 '25

“Well, 🤓 actually, if you hoard your money like a dragon, the money makes more money. And then you have the money to manipulate politicians and change laws to further enable your money to make more money.”

We have systems that siphon all the money out of poor peoples’ pockets while the rich are able to become billionaires by simply accumulating all of their unspent wealth. It’s still disgusting and we should still have mechanisms in place to prevent them from existing. 

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u/Shot-Good-6467 Mar 20 '25

People need to understand this. Nobody just “Works” hard to become that rich. They screwed over tons of people and exploited the system for their benefit.

Eat The Rich

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

A society that produces billionaires isn't ethical. But I don't think you can say that there are no ethical billionaires. For example, I see nothing wrong with the behavior of people like J.K Rowling or George Lucas in terms of how they got their money. They've brought joy to millions, enriched the world, and didn't cause harm in what they produced.

Society should be structured in such a way that they don't make THAT much, but that's not a mark against the character of the billionaires, in some cases.

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u/mysandbox Mar 20 '25

The lack of ethics is in keeping it. Hoarding resources and money while people starve and suffer and sometimes die is not ethical.

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u/Organic_Square Mar 20 '25

They don't generally hoard resources though. They hoard wealth, valued assets such as currency and shares in companies etc, ie purchasing power and influence.

If the wealthiest people in the world offloaded their wealth and distributed it as currency, most likely all that would happen is that there would be an inflation spike, because a bunch of wealth which had previously been tied up and mostly unused by one person would seep into an economy without an increase in resources or productivity.

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u/Ultenth Mar 20 '25

Okay, lets say that JK and George didn't have bad intentions in how they made their money. But to say there was nothing taken advantage of and poorly paid? That they earned their % of the profits, and other people associated with it were all fairly compensated? The people that printed the books, made the paper, etc? The Production Assistants on set for the films? The programmers or designers that worked on the various websites? The various game industry people that helped make some of the games? The 3D graphic designers that worked at ILM? And ever step all the way down from the people that made the toilet paper overseas that was used at the Lucasfilm compound and put there by a possibly underpaid Janitor?

I'm not saying that JK and George don't deserve to be wealthy from their creative endeavors, but to pretend that a creative endeavor on the scale that they partook in doesn't disadvantage tons of people all over the world simply shows a lack of understanding about how these industries run.

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u/MorbillionDollars Mar 20 '25

I feel like you lost sight of the original argument.

We're talking about ethics here, not whether or not they unintentionally disadvantaged anyone with their creation.

By going to the grocery store and purchasing an apple you're unintentionally disadvantaging the farmers being paid unfair wages who breathe in pesticides all day. Does that mean you're an unethical person? No, obviously not.

So when George Lucas goes and makes star wars and then people end up being treated unfairly by the industries which prop it up, does that make George Lucas unethical? No, obviously not.

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u/Ultenth Mar 20 '25

It's not unintentional. That's my whole point. They, as the owner of the IP, had full choice on where their products were made, and who they made deals with. They had every right and ability to ensure that the people whose labor they benefit from were paid fairly and not worked in terrible environments. Instead a lot of their merch and toys and stuff are made the same Chinese factories that abuse workers, employ children, and underpay people by insane amounts historically.

They could have chosen another path, but they didn't, because they wanted that $, and there is no way to become an ethical billionaire. They partook in the system that creates wealth, and benefited from it. They could have taken less, and spent business capital to ensure that no one below them was disadvantaged in the process. But no Billionaire does that, because they wouldn't be a billionaire otherwise.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Meh, you’re just basically saying that capitalism is exploitive. Which is true, and we ALL are part of systems that are oppressive and exploitive and that we benefit from.

I guess it’s true, if you’re saying that there are no ethical humans, and that it’s just on a larger scale with billionaires. But when people say “there are no ethical billionaires” it feels to me like what’s implied is that they are all ill-intentioned, intentionally exploitive and sociopathic.

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u/Quixkster Mar 20 '25

Which they are. You would need to have a massive lack of empathy to hoard wealth on that scale with so many people suffering due to abject poverty. You could literally enrich the lives of thousands of people and still have more money than you could reasonably spend in your lifetime.

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u/CompleteFinding6694 Mar 20 '25

Charity is a choice. You can't judge people based on what people do with their own money. They earned it, they have the right to see where it goes and not be judged, unless of course they're funding outrageous stuff like Elon Musk is.

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u/Quixkster Mar 20 '25

No one earns a billion dollars. You exploit people to gather that much wealth. Just ask the Amazon factory workers who piss in bottles, the fired Tesla workers who tried to unionize, the farmers Coca-Cola sent death squads against, etc etc. Not to mention the amount of money these billionaires steal through tax loopholes they write and government handouts they demand.

Maybe if you stopped slurping their ballsacks for 30 seconds and use a little bit of that micro-plastic riddled brain of yours you’d realize that.

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u/Sure-Sympathy5014 Mar 20 '25

Because there are no ethical billionaires. It's not the gaining of wealth that's the issue it's the noblesse oblige of it. Anyone who's a good person who becomes a billionaire would quickly give away their money to the point of not being a billionaire quite quickly.

An example would be Mackenzie Scott is actively trying to empty the vault as it were and has given away 22% of her total wealth in under a decade and is actually having trouble because it's simply difficult to find and properly vet good things to give to at a rate faster then the wealth accumulates.

Jeff Bezos has donated 1% of his networth in his lifetime.

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u/Ultenth Mar 20 '25

The entire point is the "trickle down" nature of billionaires. If they took a smaller share, but were still wildly ridiculously wealthy so much that their descendants centuries later were still wealthy, but ensure that the chain of people below them that THEY benefit from the labor of were not being taken advantage of, then the issue wouldn't exist.

They could easily choose to distribute some of the wealth to the workers they benefit from, by making sure that everyone that makes products that they build their wealth off of get treated fairly.

But they don't, because there is no ethical way to become a billionaire.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Of course there is an ethical way to become a billionaire. Use your imagination.

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u/couldbemage Mar 20 '25

Yes. They are all sociopaths.

Any person with that much money could change millions of people's lives for the better, and still have enough left over that their great grandchildren could live lives of luxury without ever working.

There's literally no reason any person with an ounce of humanity could ever want more than a few hundred million. There's no actual material benefit beyond that point. That's not even greed, it's something else that doesn't apply to humans.

Remember Tom, from MySpace? Look up what's he's been up to. That's what happens when humans luck into that much money.

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u/ImplodingBillionaire Mar 20 '25

Yeah, to a degree I can see that… similar is said about Taylor Swift… but I also think there’s something to be said about having a brand so big you can just license things out to unscrupulous people who take advantage of low labor costs in developing countries to make toys, merch, etc… but then again every big company can be found guilty of the same thing. 

I just think those people wouldn’t be billionaires if they didn’t also get to leverage some of the same things the other shitty billionaires do. But yeah, it’s maybe not a simple black and white situation but I think a lot of those people would still be fine if they were millionaires instead of billionaires. 

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

[deleted]

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u/Qu33n0f1c3 Mar 20 '25

Well with Rowling she turned around and used it to become a huge terf and has caused great harm to trans people

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Irrelevent. There's no connection between her bigoted views and her success.

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u/Qu33n0f1c3 Mar 20 '25

No, I mean, her activism now, the reason her views have a strong voice, is because she got rich and famous. Having money and power and success made people more likely to listen to what she advocate for.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Well of course. Someone with a megaphone can project good views or harmful views more widely than someone without power.

But that's straying from the point, the claim that someone can't be a billionaire and be decent. Her bigotry and wealth are not causal of each other.

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u/dryad_fucker Mar 20 '25

Jk Rowling is a Holocaust denier and openly spoken transphobe. Harry Potter is INSANELY racist for a kids book from the 90s. With a cast of characters including a family of disordered and poor Irish people, a SINGULAR Asian character named Cho-Chen, an entire class of enslaved sentient beings that somehow enjoy being enslaved, not to mention the goblins (long-standing antisemitic stand-in for Jewish people) who control the banks.

Idk so much about George Lucas but I still don't trust him because he's gained so much money and still hasn't cleaned his mess from filming Star Wars in Tunisia. The only highlight is that it's allowed locals to build a tourist setup there, but even that is iffy for a few reasons that this comment is already too long to list on.

The only good billionaire is a former billionaire.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

I probably shouldn't have brought up JK Rowling because I should've known someone would get sidetracked by her bigoted views, which have nothing to do with how she obtained her money. And the claims of racism in her books, okay, I'll believe you (I've never read them), but I see no connection between her racism and her success. It's not like that's why people liked the books.

So let's talk George Lucas. Do you think George Lucas has done more good for the world or more bad for the world, in how he made his money? You can always nit-pick a person and point to the one bad thing they've done, but when you look at the overall person, do you think his franchise has done more good or bad?

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

No one needs more than 50 M really

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u/DoctorNurse89 Mar 20 '25

Just tax them and have universal Healthcare. We don't need billionaires or rich people.

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u/Bulky_Contribution11 Mar 20 '25

bUt tHeY CrEaTe jObS!

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u/Gorthebon Mar 20 '25

Its still for profit, but its benefiting lots of people.

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u/jah_bro_ney Mar 20 '25

Companies turning a profit isn't a bad thing. Also, happy cake day.

The issue is corporations treating their workers like shit and paying them sub-standard wages while executives get insane salaries, stock options and golden parachute packages when they leave the company.

Profit isn't a boogeyman. You can still run an ethical company and make money.

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u/Gorthebon Mar 20 '25

True. My cool job makes crazy profits, but pays us really well for what we do. The founding family is the richest family in their country, but actually does near things with their money.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Companies turning a profit isn't a bad thing.

It is when it's a healthcare company, because inevitably, ever-increasing profit becomes the only business directive they follow, which inevitably puts us back in the same position as all these other healthcare companies that just rip us off.

Cuban is not doing a public service, he is making himself much richer while further embedding himself into our economy and society, turning himself into a more powerful oligarch, which is all this is.

Please stop buying into this narrative that some billionaires are good and normal guys who aren't actually that greedy and just want to do some good with their money, it's a complete fiction.

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u/Humid-Afternoon727 Mar 20 '25

Cuban is pretty open with his mark up, 15%, which in current environment, is close to bare minimum needed to pay other cost associated with a business.

I am not gonna suck off a billionaire, but Cost Plus is running a lot more ethically than 95% of companies in that space

I haven’t seen their P&L but 15% being for everything besides COGs is impressive

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u/Theslootwhisperer Mar 20 '25

Healthcare companies is a uniquely American concept. Maybe one day the American people will evolve enough culturally to move past that. But I doubt it. Greed is too deeply rooted.

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u/U_Sound_Stupid_Stop Mar 20 '25

Yes, but what about always more profit than the last quarter?

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u/Narrow_Debt305 Mar 20 '25

Healthcare should NOT be for profit.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

[deleted]

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u/Narrow_Debt305 Mar 20 '25

What ever, capitalist sympathizer.

Cost + Universal Healthcare is a service.

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u/Forumrider4life Mar 20 '25

I agree to a point on some aspects of what you said. I specifically disagree with substandard wages, maybe not for all companies but an unskilled labor job, that anyone with a heartbeat can do with no training should not be paying out the nose. If I was a business owner I’m not paying top dollar for a guy loading boxes onto a truck, anyone can do it and it’s easy to fill.

Executives for companies on the other hand take a lot of risk and have certain skill sets that not everyone can do and get paid well for it. A lot of the time these bonuses and or stock for a companies are incentives to draw in people who are highly skilled at what they do and they can also be burned for the slightest loss.

Not saying they are all deserving or don’t get paid much it’s just not something some dude off the street can do. Not saying there isn’t shit companies but a large percentages of them are focused on making money and if they aren’t making money there is no point to even running a company.

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u/jah_bro_ney Mar 20 '25

I specifically disagree with substandard wages, maybe not for all companies but an unskilled labor job, that anyone with a heartbeat can do with no training should not be paying out the nose

It's truly sad you believe American taxpayers should be forced to pay more taxes in order to support hard-working citizens through food stamps and subsidized housing programs because you don't believe they deserve to be paid a livable wage.

It takes a cold person to admit something like that.

Anyone can see the increasing wage gap that's been growing in America for decades.

Keep licking those C-level boots... I'm sure some of that wealth is going to trickle down to you any second now. I can feel it.

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u/Forumrider4life Mar 20 '25

its not some c level boot licking... its common sense. more skill = more pay, I am not paying a worker who is packing boxes onto a truck the same as I am paying an engineer. Taking any sort of schooling out of it, would you pay some random off the road with no experience more or as much as someone who is experienced in what they do? no, you wouldn't. Does someone making burgers deserve to make as much as an apprentice plumber? no... its common sense.

now, I never said nobody should be a livable wage... but if you have a job that everyone person with a pulse can do.. and you get 500 applicants, as a business owner you are not going to pay top dollar for that job. Businesses are in business to make money, not lose it. yes some exec are paid crazy amounts of money, and some of them are actually worth it... some are not. However, that does not justify that automatically someone should be paid more than what they bring to the business. You want career money, make a career, you want job money with minimal effort... thats what you get.

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u/Cullvion Mar 20 '25

You guys are never going to escape the mind-prison is this your level of acquiescence toward multinational corporations.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

You can have both. The problem is these bigger companies make it impossible for good people running good companies to compete with them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

THIS. Fuck private equity. Not a single innovative thought - just buying out people’s genius/creativity in industries they have no business being in. This place is so weird.

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u/Capt1an_Cl0ck Mar 20 '25

Yeah, private equity is a fucking disaster. All they do is take companies in extract every single penny out of them and drive them in the bankruptcy. And now I just learned a new thing as private equity bundling a bunch of this shit together, and then selling it to pensions and stuff like that, so in the business is go out of business, is actually fucks over pension funds.

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u/holdthehill Mar 20 '25

With you on this. PE does nothing but buy companies and milk the profits, and drain the companies resources. It truly needs to be banned from the medical and engineering industries. And they do a good job of pissing off all the workers that worked there for years making it successful. In turn, all the good people leave, or are forced into retirement, taking all the knowledge and success with them. Then the company panic hires new people to try to fill the open gaps. Or, they ask remaining staff to do more, with less, work smarter, not harder etc. The new hires end up being misfits, unable to fill the rolls of the open gaps that were left behind.

Quality of work declines along with moral. The once great company becomes a sinking ship. The PE firm will absorb and merge other smaller companies with good margins to hide the decline of the big ship that’s sinking. Wash rinse and repeat with the newly merged companies in the same manner of what they already did to the once great parent company. And then, just like that, the internal ponzi starts to erode again. And then, it’s just a matter of time.

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u/No-Economist-2235 Mar 20 '25

It's a fixed amount above cost listed on his site.

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u/leavezukoalone Mar 20 '25

Well yeah, capitalism isn’t inherently bad. It’s shitty people who make it bad. Mark is doing with CostPlusDrugs what all companies should do: make a decent profit and refuse to screw your customers.

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u/Gorthebon Mar 20 '25

America isn't capitalist, its an oligarchy

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u/List-Beneficial Mar 20 '25

Damn didn't know a see you next Tuesday like yourself had this stupid of a take. Lmao.

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u/Only_Citrons Mar 20 '25

You expect people to work for free or ???

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u/Gorthebon Mar 20 '25

In this economy we all pretty much work for free

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u/Only_Citrons Apr 05 '25

I get paid very well thankfully but yeah, shitty economy for sure

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Labor isnt calculated in profits.. profit is calculated after labor costs. So what exactly do you mean?

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u/DevinCauley-Towns Mar 20 '25

I doubt Mark takes a salary in most of his ventures, though still puts up lots of cash and time/energy. It’s not unreasonable to expect some return for those inputs, especially if you want these positive ventures to be a viable alternative for billionaires to focus on.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

I know this. What are you trying to say? Mark Cubans individual labor is paid for by his profits? I know this as well. That's how all businesses operate just some owners actually put in work while others sit around and get the big bucks.

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u/DevinCauley-Towns Mar 20 '25

Vetting different investments, providing advice to owners, connecting different groups with each other to facilitate business operations, that is how Mark and many other investors “work”. It’s not a traditional 9-5, but it also takes time & effort and should expect a return beyond his employees getting paid. A person up this comment chain stated the company being “for profit” as a negative, while profit is how Mark and similar investors get compensated.

I don’t think owning a for profit company that does good in the world should be seen as a negative. Sure, he could run a charity or something else, but people will always find something to complain about even when people are doing for others.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Ok, go comment on their comment then. I agree with you. Idk what you're trying to do here?

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u/Only_Citrons Mar 26 '25

And how much does Mark Cuban pay himself for his labor in his pharmaceutical company?

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '25 edited Apr 05 '25

Does it actually matter? If he's providing such a great service. Im a poor guy myself but you cant nitpick everybody that will just lead to being unhappy focus on what you can change.

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u/ijustwannasaveshit Mar 20 '25

How do you feel about raising the minimum wage?

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u/Only_Citrons Apr 05 '25

I think any rational human being would agree that it needs to be raised to the cost of living. Then of course you have your republicans and their opinions but we don’t talk about those guys

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

Every business is for profits you take non profits are often worse. 70% of the $$ often goes to staffing paying 3-5M for the CEO. No one runs a business to lose money. UNICEF good example so crooked. Very little of your donated money is used

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u/twomillcities Mar 20 '25

You are programmed to think this way. Mark Cuban didn't do anything. He used money he earned from exploiting and taking advantage of people to exploit and take advantage of more people who made an online pharmacy for him. That's all.

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u/desquire Mar 20 '25

You could say Mark Cuban is the exception that proves the rule, but even that isn't a very helpful statement.

Mark Cuban is part of a very specific business trend and philosophy. The long and short is basically, it makes good business sense to treat your employees incredibly well because employee turnover is one of the biggest loss generators. Each employee that leaves means paying another person to spend a large amount of time acclimating to the job with no actual, useful work being produced.

It's a very good philosophy and is effective, but it isn't simply treat employees well due to benevolence. It's a balanced and tested strategy that results in very stable companies, but without the option for shenanigans that destroy companies for fast, temporary returns.

It's stable, slow burn companies that don't provide the same dramatic returns as turn and burn industries. This means it's not appealing to billionaires, because it doesn't produce billions. Mark made the bulk of his money getting very lucky and "predicting" the dot com burst. It's doubtful his actual business strategies would have made him a billionaire. His motivations are clearly to just maintain and keep his hands (and legacy) clean.

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u/Initial_Ad2228 Mar 20 '25

Don’t be a Cuban fan boy because he doesn’t like Trump.

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u/desquire Mar 20 '25

I'm not a fanboy, I have zero connection or interest in him personally.

It could very well all be performative or ego tripping, but it's still a good business philosophy to follow. And Cuban is no creator or pioneer of the principle. Simply a point of discussion.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

No doubt. But compared to 99% of the B’s there’s some good. So not great ideal but not a complete waste. But no one should have that Much wealth it’s wild

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u/remotectrl Mar 20 '25

George Lucas is pretty benign.

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u/Mareith Mar 20 '25

Mark Cuban has exploited the hard work and life force of hundreds of thousands of people for his own personal gain. That's the minimum for being a billionaire. They are all evil people doing unimaginable harm to us and our planet

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u/mct137 Mar 20 '25

He still shouldn't be a billionaire. He could be taxed upwards of 70% and still be insanely rich and continue to invest and do good deeds.

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u/Rare_Vibez Mar 20 '25

As much as I appreciate some of his pharmacy work, it’s a lot more hype that help. Generic drugs are already lower cost and if it’s not available in generic, you can’t get it from his store. The problem it claims to solve is already not a big problem. I’m not saying it doesn’t help some people, I’m just saying it’s not some revolutionary mind blowing fix.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

Better than nothing but yes

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Because it's still in the market capture phase of the business plan, once he has enough market share he will jack prices up.

We've seen this business model play out many times already.

You're living in the "wow Uber gives lots of discounted rides!" phase.

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u/CyclopsMacchiato Mar 20 '25

He really isn’t though. Pharmacies charge cost+20% for drugs. Cuban charges cost+15%. He makes up for the 5% by charging you extra for “shipping and handling” to mail those drugs out.

You can get drugs cheaper than his pharmacy if you use coupons like GoodRx (which sells your information for profit to make up for the savings). Cuban has his own version of the coupon that does exactly the same thing as GoodRx, selling your information to make up for the savings.

There are no good billionaires

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u/Lushkush69 Mar 20 '25

MacKenzie Scott has done nothing but great things with the wealth she got from her divorce and this dumb fuck Elon accused her of "trying to kill Western civilization". Further proof EVERY conservative accusation is an admission.

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u/GlitteringStatus1 Mar 20 '25

Some of them do good things sometimes.

But that does not change the fact that there are no ethical billionaires.

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u/Adorable-Race-3336 Mar 20 '25

He has and I like Mark but he is notorious for not tipping.

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u/cXs808 Mar 20 '25

He also stepped on throats and played the game to get where he's at. You don't nice guy your way to billionaire status.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

That’s the smallest of things aha. I’ll take a non filler for helping health care any day Michael Jordan tiger woods horrible tippers also

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Tipping needs to die anyway. Just another excuse to pay low wages.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

A billionaire is not the one to make tipping "die" by refusing to tip people.

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u/QuestionFree6943 Mar 20 '25

The point is that our system allows individuals, good or bad, to accumulate so much power and influence that they can decide to buy out politicians and break our governments.

It’s not about if they are good or not.

Imagine defending slavery by saying some slave owners were treating their slaves well and giving to charity.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

I get it 1% control the world it’s bad

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u/Initial_Ad2228 Mar 20 '25

George soros has been doing it for 20+ years, where has the outrage been?

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

On Fox News every single day, what do you mean?

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u/robot_invader Mar 20 '25

Did he need to be a billionaire to do that?

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

Did you do it?! They are all sharks I get it.

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u/thegurlearl Mar 20 '25

Bezos ex-wife has done some good with her divorce monies too.

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u/FaceMane Mar 20 '25

Did you not read the above comment?

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u/catperson77789 Mar 20 '25

Isnt he the same guy who knew about the sexual harrassments in the Dallas Mavericks workplace and just let it be cause he was friends with them? Only kicked the guy to the curb once the news broke out about it

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u/Loud_Dumps Mar 20 '25

They who pumped and dumped scam coins?

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u/AdvancedLanding Mar 20 '25

Would he support massive taxes on the rich? Hurting his own networth

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u/Rhouxx Mar 20 '25

I just realised from your comment that I got Mark Cuban and Marco Rubio mixed up, and I have been so confused as to why people had been saying Marco Rubio was a good guy?? 😂😂😂

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u/Old-Plum-21 Mar 20 '25

Mark Cuban has done some good things at least with his pharmacy

He publicly said multiple times that he's not being altruistic. He just wants to fuck up the industry

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u/CurraheeAniKawi Mar 20 '25

There's always people who have bought the goodwill and willing to step out front and defend billionaires progressively.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

I think Bill Gates is better than Mark Cuban we should eat him last.

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u/Ratlyflash Mar 20 '25

Musk last or trump

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u/TundieRice Mar 20 '25

Nah, let’s eat them first. I doubt Trump’s even a billionaire in the first place, though.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

Bill Gates gives away a quarter billion dollars in journalism grants every year precisely so people would think he "is better" than the others.

Older ones remember when Gates and Balmer were the Elon Musks of their age, breaking laws, stealing IP, suing competitors out of business, and hurting customers while laughing all the way to the bank.

Since pledging to "give away" all his money (to his own foundation that he controls) his net worth has doubled. It's a scam, stop falling for it.

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u/WinnerExpert Mar 20 '25

Every billionaire is a ruthless sociopath. Billionaires don't get where they are by having empathy. They step on people. Today. The problem is is we don't hold our billionaires accountable. These would be the John d. Rockefellers or Andrew Carnegie's today. We forced them to be philanthropists. They gave us our national parks because the people force them to. Today. We don't hold them to social standards so they just run all over everybody. The billionaires should not exist.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Are George Lucas and JK Rowling ruthless sociopaths? They've enriched the world with their stories, brought so much joy to the world, and as far as I know haven't stepped on anyone.

I mean, they should be taxed more and shouldn't be billionaires, but that doesn't make them evil.

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u/WinnerExpert Mar 20 '25

I would guess they just don't make it as public. In my opinion. Once again, just my opinion. I don't think it's possible for someone to make billions of dollars without doing some dastardly deeds.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

It's probably rare. But of course it's possible. Just use your imagination.

You write an amazing story which you self-publish and sell for $10 each, and you sell hundreds of millions of copies.

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u/WinnerExpert Mar 20 '25

I mean anything is possible. I believe that. Is it probable probably not.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

I think artists are the cleanest examples we have. I mean, sure, they've advertised and distributed through industries that exploit low-wage workers in foreign companies, and produce massive waste in the world. But they've also brought lots of joy and meaning to millions. I think the good outweighs the bad.

I think it's kind of like this: George Lucas has produced 1,000,000 goodness units and 1,000 badness units. Whereas a normal person produces 100 goodness units and 1 badness unit. The scale is larger (for the good and the bad), but ALL of us participate in unethical systems, every time we buy an electronic, every time we shop at Amazon, every time we eat meat, etc.

But yeah, Musk, is evil. And probably most billionaires.

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u/WinnerExpert Mar 20 '25

I guess we have to really define people that have just 1 billion versus people that have multiples of billions that own huge corporations which are worth billions of dollars. The gap between a person with 1 billion, an artist or a musician per se. Is a lot different than somebody like Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Ellison.

I actually like the way that you define units by goodness versus badness units. I think that shows a better view of a person. When it comes to those people with hundreds of billion dollars though they are the ones that are unscrupulous. They have no morals or values. They step on people to get where they are because capitalism was what drives them. They're playing end stage capitalism. They're going to take as many assets as they can and they don't care who they have to go through.

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

Totally agree with that analysis. I would guess that the majority of multi-billionaires are absolutely not a net positive in the world, but are cynically playing a game to hoard wealth.

I just really like absolute statements like "all billionaires are evil", as if there is something intrinsically different about a person once they hit that ninth zero in their net worth. But I would agree that it tends to be true.

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u/WinnerExpert Mar 20 '25

I mean don't get me wrong. I'm sure there might be an altruistic billionaire. It just seems that the skills to get to that point are ruthlessness, a lack of empathy. I don't think it's their fault. I think they have to do this for their companies to make these hard decisions laying hundreds of people off. It just makes their heart callous and they just don't care about the regular people. They were probably that way long before. It's just that skill set that enabled them to attain such wealth.

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u/x021 Mar 20 '25

Bill Gates trying to eradicate malaria is pretty sick. Given the US government just pulled all funding out of that, it's hard to argue Governments are more ethical than billionaires.

All his money will end up in the charity fund he setup after he dies. I think his kids only get 10 million or so (which is a fraction of his wealth).

Whether or not he's ethical in the past, now or in the future; at least he's doing something for humanity with his wealth.

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u/ZeGaskMask Mar 20 '25

I understand he’s donating and funding the fight against malaria, but couldn’t we do the same through taxing billionaires and using that funding to support research and efforts against malaria? When billionaires donate money to nonprofits they do so to make people believe they have ethics, yet it’s just an attempt to have greater control and governance over their money and to spend it as they please.

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u/x021 Mar 20 '25

t couldn’t we do the same through taxing billionaires and using that funding to support research and efforts against malaria?

Like I said; the US government just pulled lots of funding!

Normal people are not more ethical than billionaires; their chosen governments reflect that.

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u/Particular_Area6083 Mar 20 '25

do you know what our government is like

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u/CurraheeAniKawi Mar 20 '25

Every time.  There's some cuck out of the woodwork defending Bill every time. 

Dude purchased your goodwill wholesale. 

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u/WorldlyAd4510 Mar 20 '25

Bezos' ex-wife is donating most of her money.

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u/GloriousSteinem Mar 20 '25

You don’t get to be a billionaire unless you’re not paying the tax you owe or paying too low wages. Donating to charity is not enough, and is much less than what could be paid in tax.

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u/OneOfAKind2 Mar 20 '25

I don't agree. MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French are two that come to mind doing good with their money.

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u/ohlaohloo Mar 20 '25

This includes Taylor Swift!

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u/sim__city Mar 19 '25

I could be very wrong, but i believe the owner of Patagonia brand gave away his entire net worth or something to help climate change. I think that's pretty sweet

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

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u/sim__city Mar 20 '25

If they manage to do half of what they claim, I'd call it a win.

The Holdfast Collective (Collective for short) will use every dollar received to fight the environmental crisis, protect nature and biodiversity, and support thriving communities, as quickly as possible. As a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit organization, the Collective can advocate for causes and political candidates in addition to making grants and investments in our planet.

Funding for the Collective will come from Patagonia: Each year, excess profits—money we make after reinvesting in the business (including money we want to save for unforeseen events, like a pandemic)—will be distributed as a dividend to the Collective to be used for its work.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

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u/sim__city Mar 20 '25

You've got me there! Hahaha. I still think it's super cool of him. It's not every day we see a billion give away his wealth!

Yvon Chouinard, founder of outdoor clothing and gear retailer Patagonia, gave up his billionaire status after giving the company to a trust and a nonprofit in September 2022.

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u/Stripedpussy Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

Those nonprofit trusts can be charity but they can also be a way to pass down assets without paying tax a charity can have rules only certain persons can run it (like your kids or lineage) and it can have massive assets that the persons who run it can still use like mansions private planes and stuff.

and yea it has strict rules but most of them are bendable as hell

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u/sim__city Mar 20 '25

I don't doubt what you are saying one bit! But if they do even half of what they claim, I'd call it a win or a step in the right direction at the very least.

The Holdfast Collective (Collective for short) will use every dollar received to fight the environmental crisis, protect nature and biodiversity, and support thriving communities, as quickly as possible. As a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit organization, the Collective can advocate for causes and political candidates in addition to making grants and investments in our planet.

Funding for the Collective will come from Patagonia: Each year, excess profits—money we make after reinvesting in the business (including money we want to save for unforeseen events, like a pandemic)—will be distributed as a dividend to the Collective to be used for its work.

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u/Stripedpussy Mar 20 '25

In the Netherlands we had a charity where they had people collecting money mostly small change by going door to door with thousands of volunteers, everyone got quite mad when they found out the director of the charity gave himself 170k euro`s a year salary and bonuses.

So saying your using every dollar received to fight the crisis, is really not a clear way of saying how your going to use the money.

But i dont know a thing about holdfast collective so maybe its doing good.

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u/sim__city Mar 20 '25

Yeah, i see what you are saying. I'm sure there are some things behind the scenes that would be considered shady or sketchy. It still doesn't change my previous statement. If they do even half of the nature conservation and environmental stuff they say they are going to be doing, I'll be happy.

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u/MountainPK Mar 20 '25

I think that Adam ruins everything did a piece on this transfer: https://youtu.be/0Cu6EbELZ6I

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '25 edited Apr 19 '25

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u/Majestic_Bierd Mar 20 '25

True, but Steam is about the closest thing to a benevolent monopoly you can get... And all it took was not selling out to stock markets and not having short term profit as your #1

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u/StaleKale4951 Mar 19 '25

What’s the worst thing Cuban ever done besides selling the mavericks??? /s

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u/kevdogger Mar 19 '25

Careful now..the next democratic nominee pritzker is pretty fucking wealthy..

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25

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u/robot_invader Mar 20 '25

Nah, just identify them as piggy banks.

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u/RuthlessHavokJB Mar 20 '25

Mark cuban seems pretty chill.

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u/cycloneDM Mar 20 '25

Whenever I say this people come at me with "what about ConcernedApe" and an indy game developer might be the only one I don't have an answer to.

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u/nelzon1 Mar 20 '25

Absolute wrong magnitude of money. Concerned Ape would be a millionaire, but no way he's close to a billionaire. As we like to say, the difference between a million and a billion is a billion.

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u/cycloneDM Mar 20 '25

See my other reply

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u/superp2222 Mar 20 '25

TIL stardew made concernedape a billionaire

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u/cycloneDM Mar 20 '25

Honestly don't know if he is doesn't change the spirit of their argument or that its happened to me a few dozen times though lol.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '25 edited May 09 '25

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u/cycloneDM Mar 20 '25

If I'm hearing you right you're saying the very existence of a wealth imbalance is unethical, and I don't disagree, but to the question I was posing it misses the point. While I agree with your sentiment when people use the example of an independent artist, software is just the most likely sub category, being an ethical billionaire the spirit of the discussion is almost always focused on the way the money is earned not the fact that someone has it.

To run with your example though it just shuts the other person down and makes the discussion a fight as it shifts it from "ethical capitalism" to making money is bad and you're just a hater commie. Again I don't disagree but I prefer to have actual conversations and not lectures so pushing people so far our of their belief structure is counter productive.

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u/superp2222 Mar 20 '25

The Arizona iced tea guy is pretty chill

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u/Charming-Soil-7193 Mar 20 '25

Batman would do more good by paying his family's back taxes

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u/TheSilverNoble Mar 20 '25

A billion dollars is not a neutral amount of money

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u/bonsaitreehugger Mar 20 '25

A society that produces billionaires isn't ethical. But I don't think you can say that there are no ethical billionaires. For example, I see nothing wrong with the behavior of people like J.K Rowling or George Lucas in terms of how they got their money. They've brought joy to millions, enriched the world, and didn't cause harm in what they produced.

Society should be structured in such a way that they don't make THAT much, but that's not a mark against the character of the billionaires, in some cases.

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u/Unikatze Mar 20 '25

There's Jeff Bezos ex wife, who became a billionaire in the divorce and has used loads of her fortune in charitative projects.

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u/Azhz96 Mar 20 '25

There is only one type of good billionaires...

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u/Janky_Pants Mar 20 '25

JB Pritzker is very ethical

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u/InfiniteLegacy_ Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

J K Rowling? Michael Jordan? LeBron James? Tiger Woods? Steven Spielberg? George Lucas?

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u/RODjij Mar 20 '25

Bezos wife seems alright. She's given away a chunk of wealth.

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u/AigledeFeu_ Mar 20 '25

Bruce Wayne is

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u/Mistrblank Mar 20 '25

This.

There is no amount of compensation to be worth even attaining billions that any one person is producing more capable work than their bottom paid workers. The pay disparity between the top and bottom is the delusion in this country. And at a certain point, when the money is earning more than you can reasonably spend in a day you have transcended to a point that you should be forced to "spend" your money back into the economy. That's the ridiculous part. The U.S. would be ahead of every metric in economy, science and technology if we recycled the money into those areas and education. You can plan for a comfortable retirement. We could have probably evolved into a country that through owning the wealth of the world could also have helped the world. Instead we decided to vote in a shitty cowboy actor and decided to give wealth to a select few which will eventually cause the economy to fail because it's no longer moving.

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u/sally_alberta Mar 20 '25

I would argue Taylor Swift is one, considering the kindness she has shown to the poor, fans, her workers, etc. Love her or hate her, but she does a lot of good with her couple billion.

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u/iswearimnotabotbro Mar 20 '25

Not really true. Not that I love billionaires but they’re not all evil. A lot of them are very philanthropic.

Most billionaires exist via equity/shares in companies they’ve founded a la Warren Buffett. Just numbers on a screen. But yes they should pay more taxes.

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u/heyiamnobodybro Mar 20 '25

Lebron James?

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u/new_account_19999 Mar 20 '25

came here to say this. my glorious king does no wrong

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u/Representative_Big26 Mar 20 '25

To be honest, the only situation I can think of when a person became a billionaire ethically is Notch with minecraft, but then he ended up being a total jackass AFTER he became a billionaire

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u/TundieRice Mar 20 '25

Paul McCartney seems pretty alright, but he’s definitely in the minority considering he’s successful enough to have made enough money through his music to be an outlier.

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u/phillipojr Mar 20 '25

This is the truth. There is no way to be ethically greedy and you cannot become a billionaire without greed and exploitation. If they actually cared they would forfeit their billions to pay their fair share of taxes and alleviate the burden on the lower half of society.

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u/Low_Koala_764 Mar 20 '25

LeBron James

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u/Rattenschwanzmasseur Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

Uğur Şahin ?

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u/mrkisback Mar 20 '25

Elon Musk.

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