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Comment by afavour | Hacker News Reader

This thread is a good example of how silly the debate has gotten.

"You're trying to tell me Musk's family is rich? He couldn't even pay for SpaceX himself, how could he be rich?!"

"I've put away some cash for my child to go to college, are you saying I'm as rich as Elon Musk?!"

It's all just so ridiculous. A lot of people here seem convinced that there are only two arguments to be made: that Musk is a spoiled trust fund baby that deserves no credit for everything, or that Musk was a hard-scrabble self-starter that did everything on his own. Maybe, just maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?

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IIRC the claim is that Musk’s dad’s share was worth 50 grand USD when he bought it. There are individual emeralds worth that much. It likely wasn’t much of a mine if it did exist. A tiny artisanal mine.

I think the point is the only evidence that you provided for the argument that “Musk got his wealth from his family’s emerald mine” is that his parents paid for his college expenses. And that is, in my and many others minds, is a pathetically weak argument.

Full disclosure - my parents paid for a lot of my college expenses. At least half of the people who go to Ivy leagues have parents that will pay for their college expenses. It’s almost entirely, if not completely irrelevant to his work at PayPal, the founding of SpaceX, and the building of Tesla.

So it’s baffling (to me, at least) that it keeps getting brought up as a reason to hate Elon Musk. It feels that people want to find reasons to deeply hate this person, and they through anything they possibly can against him, nonsensical or not.

> I think the point is the only evidence that you provided for the argument that “Musk got his wealth from his family’s emerald mine”

But at no point was I making that argument. The OP suggested (as Musk has many times) that the mine literally didn't exist. I was simply pointing out that according to his father it very much did exist and paid for Elon's college.

You're suggesting that Elon Musk has family wealth because his father funded his living expenses in college.

@deelowe points out that they're also saving to fund their child's expenses in college.

Therefore, you're either suggesting that @deelowe has family wealth or you're arguing in bad faith.

I'm not arguing in bad faith. I'm making specific points that, for reasons unknown, @deelowe and yourself are making a wider inference from.

The post I replied to said:

> I'm not sure where this rubbish conspiracy came from but if there was Emerald Mine money there wasn't much of it.

My reply clarified that there was indeed an emerald mine (according to Musk's father) and that it paid for his college living expenses. I then went on to say that an inability to pay for SpaceX does not mean you are "not rich".

> you're either suggesting that @deelowe has family wealth or you're arguing in bad faith.

But that's silly too. With no numbers attached "family wealth" doesn't mean anything. Almost all families have "family wealth", if anything the bad faith argument here is trying to suggest that all wealth is somehow equal.

You'll note in my original reply I didn't even say that Elon's family was inordinately wealthy, just that the mine was real and that it paid for his college. Any "bad faith" on top of that is your own interpretation, not my words.

> It's all just so ridiculous.

And yet so fascinating, and ubiquitous.

Human consciousness is a hell of a drug.

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