Letters to the Editor: From philanthropy to EV dominance, what Elon Musk could do with his wealth

To the editor: I love the irony of comparing Elon Musk’s wealth, post-SpaceX IPO, with how many gallons of gas you can buy, given Tesla is the oil industry’s most powerful enemy (“Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire — here’s what $1 trillion can buy,” June 12). Tesla has added more than 9 million electric vehicles to our roads, potentially keeping just as many gas cars off them. Indirectly, Tesla’s kept even more gas cars from being manufactured, as its success is forcing all legacy carmakers to go electric.

I’ve followed Musk since 2003 and loved that he handily beat gas carmakers at their own game. I was profoundly disappointed in his abrupt change in politics, but we have President Biden and his pro-union advisors to blame for a large part of that with their boneheaded decision to leave Tesla out of the EV summit. And then Biden had the gall to praise General Motors CEO Mary Barra, saying she “electrified the entire automobile industry.” This after GM was found guilty in the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” of trying to kill the EV. That, my friends, is Orwellian doublespeak.

But to the larger question of what you could do with $1 trillion, Musk will no doubt continue building electric cars that eventually will end the internal combustion industry, making rockets that go to the moon and Mars and automating vehicles that could save nearly 90,000 lives by 2050.

Paul Scott, Santa Monica
This writer is co-founder of electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America.

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To the editor: As I read the news of Musk becoming our first trillionaire, I remember him celebrating decimating USAID. Hundreds of thousands of people are sick, starving and facing death because of that.

Musk could personally have funded USAID himself without affecting his wealth in any measurable way. We risk losing our humanity in the quest for more money.

Debbie Cassettari, Chino Hills

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To the editor: Here’s a thought: There are about 72,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County. Musk is now worth $1.2 trillion. That’s 1.2 followed by 11 zeroes. Let’s say he suddenly feels philanthropic and decides to give each homeless person in L.A. $2,000 a month for five years to rent a studio apartment (no bedrooms for the homeless — let’s not get carried away).

Do the math: 2,000 x 12 x 5 x 62,000 equals 8.6 billion. $8.6 billion is only about 0.72% of $1.2 trillion. Any questions?

Jack Spiegelman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Laying dollar bills along the equator umpteen times or stacking them to the moon and back is still an unseeable abstraction. It’s easier to get a grasp on one 1 trillion by converting whatever is being counted to seconds.

One million seconds is between 11 and 12 days. One billion seconds is almost 32 years. One trillion seconds is more than 31,000 years.

Today, Elon Musk is “worth” more than $1 trillion. The national debt is approaching $40 trillion. Who wants to be a millionaire?

James B. Jackson, Warner Springs, Calif.

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To the editor: Strangely, in the Trump era, I find myself agreeing with conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg more often than not — the sober reasoning is refreshing to see from a right-wing commentator. This time, however, Goldberg is laughably off the mark (“Elon Musk’s new ‘trillionaire’ status is a good thing, actually,” June 16).

Once again, Goldberg trots out the trickle-down logic that Musk is “creating wealth,” as if it’s self-evident that this “wealth” will end up benefitting others. Trickle-down didn’t work by any measure (note that the wealth gap is worse now than it was in the Gilded Age). And Goldberg himself makes this assertion just after telling us that Musk’s “wealth” isn’t real anyway — his trillion “doesn’t exist, save as a function of accounting.” This contradiction is not examined. Nor is the fact that Musk’s “wealth” has been oriented toward the destruction and downsizing of jobs, from the Department of Government Efficiency to pushing for AI to replace humans in the workplace. What is this “wealth” Musk is then creating, other than the capacity to continue accumulating rich-man’s toys for himself?

Musk is not going to help anyone but himself, just as unregulated capitalism is not going to cure cancer. Scientists, ideally funded by a society that puts our tax dollars toward programs supporting social wellbeing rather than spurious wars abroad and attacks on citizens from within, find cures for diseases.

Musk’s not-real money and model of capitalism serves to ramp up the anti-social greed that is bringing down American democracy. Feel free to fly to Mars with Musk, because the rest of us want good lives together here on Mother Earth.

Amelia Jones, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Even granting that Goldberg’s sclerotic conservatism has over the years given us more than a little of “the poor deserve their poverty, and the rich earned their wealth,” his breathless, but lame, defense of Musk ignores the principal reason his appalling wealth is so dangerous: the resulting unconscionable political power it confers on Musk and his class.

No amount of hand-waving justification of meritocracy justifies this extraordinary level of greed and the myriad ills it brings us. If we fail to put reasonable limits on wealth, we must at least install draconian restraints on political spending by corporations and the rich.

T. G. Krontiris, Pasadena