The Richest Man in the World is Poor
Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet. His current net worth is $250 billion. It’s hard to explain how much $1 billion is, let alone that multiplied by 250.
The New Yorker had a long form piece on Elon last week. It was a fascinating and unsettling exposé. I highly recommend reading it.
Unsettling in the sense that Elon is not only incredibly rich, he is also incredibly powerful, unpredictable and volatile. The author writes: the government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, The Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk’s influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official.
Musk has far reaching powers in geopolitical events that concern Russia, China and the US. He has material control over the course of the war in the Ukraine through his provision of Starlink communication services.
No individual has had quite so much influence or power in modern history. “There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependence that the US now has on Musk in a variety of fields.”
This might be ok (might) if Musk was well-balanced and truly had the best interests of the world at heart, but the picture the author paints is not that. He is not well-balanced - his use of Ambien and Ketamine are reportedly responsible for his increasingly impulsive statements and decisions. And he is a narcissist, best summed up by Sam Altman, “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.”
The whole article is frankly quite depressing but this paragraph really stood out to me:
“Some of Musk’s associates connected his erratic behaviour to efforts to self-medicate. Musk, who says he now spends much of his time in a modest house in the wetlands of South Texas, near a SpaceX facility, confessed, in an interview last year, “I feel quite lonely.” He has said that his career consists of “great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress.” One close colleague told me, “His life just sucks, it’s so stressful, he’s just so dedicated to these companies. He goes to sleep and wakes up answering e-mails.”
It really made me think about wealth – what is it all for if you are the richest man alive but your life sucks? Literally sucks.
Real wealth and riches are so clearly not the same thing.
In contrast to everything I read about Elon I have been thinking about a definition of wealth most beautifully articulated by Boyd Varty (a lion tracker that I have written about before). He asked the question, what is real wealth?
I have never seen such a beautiful and visual description:
“Real wealth is being unrushed, it’s stillness
It’s enjoying your food
It’s having time to explore
It’s having places you are excited to explore
It’s clean air
Automony
It’s a river to swim in
It’s feeling creatively engaged
Work you care about
Quality presence with yourself and others
Days you actually look forward to
The space to think
Rest when you want to
Freedom from crushing obligations”
That definition of wealth is literally the opposite of what Elon Musk has. On this metric of wealth, Elon Musk is a poor man.
But what about you? If you look at each of these lines, how do you fare? If you have to rank your progress on a scale of 1 to 10, where do you sit?
If we want a life of real success, of contentment and happiness, then this is a pretty good definition on which we can measure ourselves.
So here it goes, for me.
Real wealth is being unrushed, it’s stillness
This summer I spent time being unrushed and still. I knew that as soon as we got back to term-time it would all start up again. I thought a lot about how I could avoid the rush, particularly the morning rush, but it’s almost inevitable in the lives that we lead – the kids need to be at school, there is traffic, a meeting to get to. The only solution I could see was to get up earlier in the mornings (and go to bed earlier at night).
So, when school started again I set my alarm clock half an hour earlier. It’s a very early start but the mornings have markedly improved. I have eaten breakfast before leaving the house (instead of in the car in the traffic) at least twice in the last week (that never used to happen).
Being unrushed is definitely a work in progress and one that I just can’t see a way out of until the kids are grown-up. I am not wishing these precious years away, so the term-time rush is just something to accept. For me, that’s why the school holidays are so important – that time is the golden time, the time to slow down, stop rushing and be still(er).
5.5 out of 10.
It’s enjoying your food
I grew up in a family of food lovers. I love my food and have always done so.
I would change a couple of things in this domain. One, I would stop eating my lunch at my desk. I mean, I have a very nice café downstairs and I really could eat there. And two, I would not eat American-produced food. I worry about the mass-produced, chemical and sugar-laden food that comes from the US. In Europe and the UK the food is healthier, fresher and so much more enjoyable to eat. There is nothing quite like fresh European bread (French is my choice), a plate of chargrilled vegetables smothered in olive oil, local meats and cheeses, and freshly caught fish. Somehow that only seems possible in Europe.
7 out of 10.
It’s having time to explore
Every year we are getting more time to explore – 2023 has been a wonderful year of exploration for us as a family.
7 out of 10.
It’s having places you are excited to explore
There is the whole world! I am currently plotting a trip to the Arctic Circle for next summer – I spend a lot of time researching and dreaming about exploring the world.
8 out of 10.
It’s clean air
This is a tricky one – Cayman air is not as clean as it should be. That’s why I love the mountains – you can’t beat the air.
4 out of 10 in Cayman, higher when we are exploring the more remote parts of the world.
Autonomy
The definition of autonomy is ‘freedom from external control or influence; independence’. Having my own business means I don’t report to anyone – that, in a large sense, is freedom from external control or influence. I don’t know though if we can ever be truly free from external control until we curb the human desire for growth, particularly growth in the capitalist sense. I am hugely driven by the need to prove myself (perhaps only to myself) and that translates into setting certain metrics in my business. I am past the goals I had when I set up Liberty Wealth and I should be absolutely delighted with that, but of course, the goal posts keep moving. The next target is X, and when I get there I know perfectly well I will pass right over it and onto the next. Until I (like everyone) learn how to stop the goal posts moving (I feel like I get closer with each year) I cannot be truly autonomous.
8 out of 10.
It’s a river to swim in
If you swap river for ocean, it’s 9 out of 10.
It’s feeling creatively engaged
I am quite musical. In the last few years, I took up playing the saxophone again. I would love to have more time to devote to playing. If I had time I would play for hours each day, and I would buy myself a baby grand piano and sit at that too. I also love to write and have often thought that I have a book in me. I would love to tell the story of my paternal grandmother who was an extraordinary lady (both my grandmothers were). For now, not feeling creatively engaged is simply a lack of time. With time, I have plenty of creative pursuits.
5 out of 10.
Work you care about
10 out of 10!
Quality presence with yourself and others
This, like being unrushed, comes in fits and starts. During the summer I scored top marks, during the term time I don’t fare so well. I do see my kids every morning and every night but is it quality presence? I guess it is when I am unrushed! Ditto, time with my husband. Like every expat, quality presence with other family members is lacking and a source of constant soul-searching. And with myself? This will come with time!
Overall, 5.5 out of 10.
Days you actually look forward to
Gosh, this is a tough one. Days you actually look forward to. Certainly there are some days that I look forward to. But equally, sometimes I wake up in the morning and wonder how on earth I am going to make it through the demands of the day. But how could it be any other way when you are running a business and a household?
6 out of 10.
The space to think
Again, I feel as though this is linked to being unrushed. If you are unrushed you have time to think. Sometimes that is true for me, but mostly it’s not.
5.5 out of 10.
Rest when you want to
As part of my quest to be more ‘unrushed’ I have been getting up earlier. Last week was the first full week of school, and hence the first full week of earlier mornings. The mornings have been MUCH better but by Thursday I was exhausted. A late afternoon client meeting was cancelled and I left the office a bit earlier than normal, with the intention of continuing to work from home when I got back. Instead I climbed into bed and slept soundly for an hour. It was heaven! This, I thought, is how I get through the week. Rest when you want to.
It's quite rare to get that opportunity (it was the concurrence of escaping the office a bit earlier and finding the house empty because all the kids were at activities) but it made me mentally commit to taking that opportunity when it arises.
This is one to report back on, but for now, I say 4 out of 10.
Freedom from crushing obligations
I like the way this is worded. It’s not free from obligations. Can we ever be free from obligations? It’s free from crushing obligations. I actually don’t know if my obligations are crushing or not. Certainly the list is endless, but I don’t think I feel, on a normal day, crushed by them.
7 out of 10.
That was a powerful exercise. Try it yourself. Write out your answers and give yourself a score. Maybe this is one to do every year to check in on progress.
My bet is that many of you are wealthier than Elon Musk on this metric. I mean, given everything I learned about him in the article, my guess is he scores zero on quite a few of these.
One final thought on wealth and success. Another billionaire recently described success as having adult children that want to spend time with you.
My parents are the most successful people on the planet. Elon Musk? He has at least nine children with three different women, and one of them recently said, “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”
Maybe he will save the world, but for him, the cost is beyond comprehension.
Georgie
georgie@libertywealth.ky