How Elon Plans to Stave Off Boredom While Saving the World

Thank you for freeing our speech, Uncle Elon

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

Let’s start with some perspective. Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter purchase is the equivalent of $133 million for each of America’s approximately 330 million citizens. Feel free to check my math.

Why did I break out the purchase in those terms, and why should it matter to you?

Because none of us has the innate capacity to scale huge numbers, we tend to gloss over them — their magnitude creates an opaque barrier to understanding.

Elon’s pre-Twitter net worth stood at an estimated $270 billion. He would need to spend $1 million daily for 270,000 days to deplete that fortune. Lest you think that’s possible — 270,000 days is 739 and three-quarters years.

Yeah. It’s that much money. Unless he quickly starts spending his money and attention to address the universal mortality problem, he won’t be able to enjoy spending it all. He wouldn’t be able to finish it all in 10 extravagant lifetimes.

That kind of money insulates from the normal challenges of normal life. It is by definition—abnormal. Without having to worry about bills to pay, one might even grow bored. The options seem infinite… Colonize Mars? Implant microchips in brains? Tunnel from LA to SF? End world hunger? Smoke weed with Joe Rogan?

What’s a gazillionaire to do?

What I’m driving at is that when any person hoards that kind of wealth—the kind that can buy up a social media platform with which he has some ideological disagreements—then buys said company, it is normal and rational to feel skeptical about the intent.

We who care about “big picture issues” should have all our alarm bells ringing.

Money has only ever been and forever will be a means to some other end. It is a medium of exchange. The accumulation of wealth does not equate to genius, or benevolence, or human worth. It means you’re really good at making money. By all accounts, he is galactically good.

Elon is exchanging $44 billion… for what exactly?

A private individual now owns a company that boasts roughly 200 million active daily users. As of January of…