You've got to work really hard to maintain such an opinion, given that:
1. Musk arrived in the US with a couple suitcases, and had so little money he stayed at a hostel
2. Musk worked low wage dirty jobs for a while
3. Musk started multiple industry leading companies, becoming the richest man in the world
The US could use a lot more idiots like Musk!
> later in terms of getting someone like Bill Harris to be CEO of x.com.
Musk was the richest man in the world when he acquired x.com. He didn't need family connections for that.
> Musk was the richest man in the world when he acquired x.com. He didn't need family connections for that.
Source? Zip2’s sale only brought in $300 million. That’s not richest man in the world stuff.
You edited your comment to remove the bit about living in youth hostels and working menial jobs, this was my reply to it:
A rite of passage. It was quite common for upper middle class and wealthy South African kids to spend a year working menial jobs and living in hostels as a way to build character and find themselves. I know, personally, people who worked in tree clearing in Canada, picking fruit in Australia, manual labour at ski resorts in New England, and living in youth hostels all before going to university to start the courses their parents were paying full tuition fees for. All of the people I mentioned are doing well in their careers, because none were actually poor despite working manual labour jobs for a year.
"Doing well" is nothing compared to what Musk has done.
His biography doesn't mention any others, and did go on about how they barely had an office.
> and in any case the vast majority of people aren’t in a position to have their parents invest $28 000 (nearly $60 000 today) in an uncertain business venture.
Sorry, $28,000 is not restricted to wealthy investors. You can't buy much of a business for $28,000. Business ventures are always uncertain. The median house in 1995 was $140,000. The median salary then was $27,845.
The idea that $28,000 was some stratospheric investment in 1995 is simply not true.
Errol invested a bit later.
I didn’t say that $28 000 was a stratospheric amount, I said it’s something the vast majority of people don’t have access to, let alone the angel investors. They also don’t have access to the doors that were opened by his family’s connections.
Again, I’m not saying Musk was merely gifted his success. Clearly that’s not true, there were hundreds if not thousands of others with similar connections and opportunities who didn’t achieve anything near his success. But your assertion that he started from rock bottom and was entirely self made is far from an accurate representation of events.
If you believe I'm wrong about that, try starting a company and getting friends and family to invest in it.
What connections are these? I've heard them alluded to a couple of times but never heard specifics.