Yes, because he didn't inherit an emerald mine.
There are many brilliant people in South Africa who are born into wealth and none of them have reached the same heights as Elon Musk.
Even if it were the case, wouldn't your argument then predict that there would be many people MUCH wealthier than him because they were born into the vast riches and privilege that is America and Europe?
Jeff Bezos used to work as a cook at McDonalds in his teenage years.
Ugh, I'll be honest, I'm kinda tired of this "debate." We're really going to keep peddling the myth that any hard working joe can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become a billionaire? That's the tale we're telling with a straight face in 2023?
- Oprah Winfrey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey)
- Howard Schultz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz)
- Ralph Lauren (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Lauren)
- Larry Ellison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison)
- Kenneth Langone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Langone)
- David Murdock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_H._Murdock)
- Alan Gerry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Gerry)
- John Paul DeJoria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_DeJoria)
Well, would he be a billionaire, if he didn't inherit an emerald mind?
> Do you think that a significant percentage of wealth inheritors go on to immigrate across the world and invent electric cars and reusable rockets?
What portion of people who inherit no wealth whatsoever, do that? What portion become billionaires? Well, that can't be that hard to find out:
https://ips-dc.org/the_self-made_hallucination_of_americas_r...
Looking at forbes 400, 22% have backgrounds with inheritances up to 1 million, 11.5% over 1 million, 7% over 50 milllion, and another 21.25% earned their way onto forbes 400 through inheritance alone. So that leaves 22% of forbes 400 maybe not having inherited that much, although the category is shared with people who inherited up to 1 million.
That's just regarding inheritance, there's also the simple side effects of growing up in a wealthy family such as having the best educational (read: networking) opportunities money can buy, having the best healthcare on earth, being well fed, etc.
I think thus it's very easy to guess that Elon would not be a hundred billionaire, or billionaire at all, if he was the exact same brain born to some working class family in south africa.