Musk is none of those things.
Not his entire career, his later decline became famous due to the scope of wealth and influence that allowed him to indulge in some truly eccentric behavior, but he didn't build said wealth & influence peeing in jars.
> never built anything important (although had a shitload of failures, like the wooden airplane)
Never built anything? How about Las Vegas? Or the several companies he founded and ran successfully across wildly divergent fields? The man designed, built and flew an aircraft that broke world speed records at the time.
> inherited a lot of his initial money and revenue streams
Seriously? Do you not know Musk's family background?
Actually the more I think about it the more I think mint2's comparison was apt, Musk really is a Hughes-like figure, quite brilliant in ways, but with a powerful thirst for publicity and corresponding need to control his image. I could see his paranoid tendencies tending to dominate in the years to come, especially if his halo fully disintegrates
Musk far more helpful gift was the fact that his mother was Canadian.
His father didnt want him to be in the Canada/US and didnt pay for most of it.
Musk certainly has no inhereted wealth, his father is alive.
What a brain-buster!
Musk hasn't inherited hardly any money at all (a couple thousand when he left SA and a bit more later when he started his first company). I think you're the one who doesn't know Musk's background.
"After Maye and Errol divorced in 1980, Elon mostly lived with his father, who says he owned thoroughbred horses, a yacht, several houses and a Cessna."[0]
He has had a charmed existence his entire life.
[0] https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/04/10/2014-rocket-man-the-o...
I didn’t say he is Howard 2.0 Hugh’s, I said he’s teetering on the edge of it. If in a few years he goes full Hughes would anyone actually be surprised?
Elon Musk is literally the child of an apartheid emerald mine owner.
"After Maye and Errol divorced in 1980, Elon mostly lived with his father, who says he owned thoroughbred horses, a yacht, several houses and a Cessna"[0]
"Errol returned to South Africa with a half-share in a Zambian emerald mine, which would help to fund his family's lavish lifestyle of yachts, skiing holidays, and expensive computers." [2]
[0] https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/04/10/2014-rocket-man-the-o...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/world/africa/elon-musk-so...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20211122143742/https://www.busin...
And at one point his father made a small investment in a mine. And even that is grounded on shaky evidence.
This mine investment might have been profitable (we dont know) but the idea that his family had some waste emrald mines is nonsense and that investment certainly didnt make the family rich.
And given their bad relationship, Elon lost support from his father when he came to US/Canada.