> Of course he's not "totally altruistic"; nobody is. Of course he's self-serving; everyone is all the time. Even the most ostensibly selfless acts have a basis in feeling good about selflessness. But I don't see how your dichotomy makes any sense. There are selfish poor people. There are altruistic poor people. There are selfish wealthy people. And there are altruistic wealthy people (disregarding blanket denials by far left wackos with emotionally derived selective criticisms of capitalism).

All of this goes without saying.

> Eye-rolling conspiracy theories aside, Bill Gates is absolute proof that someone can be an objectively great businessman and objectively highly altruistic.

The biggest and most glaring difference here is that Bill Gates is not on record attempting to take board control of a for profit company which is attempting to make malaria vaccines (of the many public health efforts he is pushing).

> Seems to me that the impusles which got Musk to where he is an obsession with extreme risk taking, combined with sufficient education and clarity of vision to sometimes bend extreme odds in his favour. History is littered with examples of wealth incinerated in the pursuit of building cars and rockets and it says a lot that he's been associated with a multitude of ultra-unlikely successes.

> Whereas many other billionaires are more directly driven by wealth accumulation, as evidenced by the trappings of extreme wealth which surround them.

None of this has anything to do with the merits of the case and really just comes of a Musk-coddling, a favorite pastime here it seems.