So much for those who hate Musk’s success…many benefitted

From the WSJ:

Shares in SpaceX skyrocketed following its record $75 billion initial public offering on Friday, apparently making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire—at least on paper. In our political age of envy, the press and Democrats are preoccupied by his otherworldly wealth. But deserving more attention is how he has enriched the country by building a remarkable company.

At the close of trading on Friday, SpaceX boasted a $2.1 trillion—yes, trillion—market valuation. The company raised $75 billion in its public debut, nearly three times more than the previous largest IPO (Saudi Aramco in 2019). It will need that money and multiples more to achieve Mr. Musk’s ambition of colonizing Mars and mining asteroids.

If the IPO had happened in China, the press would be mourning America’s economic decline. Instead, they are lamenting Mr. Musk’s riches. “Elon Musk is the world’s first trillionaire,” Bloomberg News writes. “He could theoretically do a lot with all that money—like fund 68 US election cycles or buy every carmaker in the US, Europe and Japan.” The grievance mood is strong these days at Bloomberg and most of the rest of the financial press.

Mr. Musk’s wealth largely consists of shares in SpaceX and Tesla. Their current stratospheric values could crash if the companies fail or investors lose faith in Mr. Musk. And mom and pop investors should know the risks in buying SpaceX shares. In any event, Mr. Musk’s wealth is a tribute to U.S. entrepreneurship and innovation, which are byproducts of its free-market system.

Mr. Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, launched the rocket company in 2002 with money he made from his PayPal startup. “It is certainly hard to believe that little company that started in a warehouse in El Segundo is now going public with the largest IPO ever,” he said Friday. SpaceX faced many early setbacks. Its Falcon 1 failed three times before reaching orbit in 2008.

A few months later, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract to supply the International Space Station. SpaceX later developed reusable rockets that greatly reduce launch costs, which the Chinese are still trying to achieve. Its success, which came through trial and failure, has ended U.S. reliance on Russia to transport astronauts to the space station and launch American satellites. The company is the leading edge of what could be the space economy.

In 2015 SpaceX launched Starlink, an internet satellite company that has helped Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion and dissidents living under authoritarian regimes like Iran to communicate. Mr. Musk this year merged his social-media company X.com and xAI startup with SpaceX, providing them with a vehicle to go public.

SpaceX has created thousands of jobs in working-class communities where it operates. That includes Hawthorne, Calif., Bastrop and McGregor in Texas, Memphis, Tenn., and Southaven, Miss. Its workers—including hourly blue-collar workers—receive stock options, which has allowed them to share in the company’s success.

By one estimate, the IPO has made millionaires of 4,400 SpaceX current and former employees, including 400 who hold shares worth more than $100 million. If you listen to union leaders and progressives, billionaires get rich by exploiting workers. SpaceX couldn’t succeed without its workers—as it notes in its IPO prospectus—and they would leave if they felt abused.

The IPO is giving workers and retail investors a chance to share in any future growth. It’s also allowing venture investors to cash out and pour their windfalls into new startups working on innovations that could improve and even save lives—e.g., cancer vaccines. Who knows which of these companies could someday be worth a trillion dollars?

With their envy of success and wealth, our political class ignores that financial rewards are what spur investors and entrepreneurs to take risks on companies that make all Americans better off. You don’t have to like Mr. Musk to appreciate what he has built

Bill Gates’ humanitarian work is primarily driven by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private philanthropy. His core focus is eliminating preventable infectious diseases like malaria and polio, reducing global child mortality, advancing agricultural development, and expanding economic opportunity for the world's most impoverished communities. [1, 2, 3, 4]

1. Global Health and Disease Eradication

Gates has committed billions to fighting deadly infectious diseases and improving maternal and child health worldwide. [1, 2]

1. Polio Eradication: Through the foundation, Gates has been one of the primary financial drivers behind the global effort to eradicate polio, reducing cases by over 99%. [1]
2. Malaria and Neglected Diseases: His organization heavily funds research and distribution for malaria vaccines, bed nets, and treatments to wipe out the disease. [1]
3. Vaccine Access: He was instrumental in creating Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, which

This from the Woke Bible…the NY Times:

By the time Melinda French Gates decided to end her 27-year marriage, her husband was known globally as a software pioneer, a billionaire and a leading philanthropist.

But in some circles, Bill Gates had also developed a reputation for questionable conduct in work-related settings. That is attracting new scrutiny amid the breakup of one of the world’s richest, most powerful couples.

In 2018, Ms. French Gates wasn’t satisfied with her husband’s handling of a previously undisclosed sexual harassment claim against his longtime money manager, according to two people familiar with the matter. After Mr. Gates moved to settle the matter confidentially, Ms. French Gates insisted on an outside investigation. The money manager, Michael Larson, remains in his job.

On at least a few occasions, Mr. Gates pursued women who worked for him at Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, according to people with direct knowledge of his overtures.

In 2019, Microsoft’s board of directors, on which Mr. Gates sat, opened an investigation into one of those cases after being notified that he had “sought to initiate an intimate relationship with a company employee in the year 2000,” Frank X. Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman, said on Sunday. The board hired a law firm to investigate. The following year, Mr. Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s board. The Wall Street Journal reported the 2000 incident and the board’s investigation.

“There was an affair almost 20 years ago which ended amicably,” said Bridgitt Arnold, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gates. “Gates’s decision to transition off the board was in no way related to this matter.”

And then there was Jeffrey Epstein, whom Mr. Gates got to know beginning in 2011, three years after Mr. Epstein, who faced accusations of sex trafficking of girls, pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Ms. French Gates had expressed discomfort with her husband spending time with the sex offender, but Mr. Gates continued doing so, according to people who were at or briefed on gatherings with the two men.

So, in October 2019, when the relationship between Mr. Gates and Mr. Epstein burst into public view, Ms. French Gates was unhappy. She hired divorce lawyers, setting in motion a process that culminated this month with the announcement that their marriage was ending.

Long after they married in 1994, Mr. Gates would on occasion pursue women in the office.

In 2006, for example, he attended a presentation by a female Microsoft employee. Mr. Gates, who at the time was the company’s chairman, left the meeting and immediately emailed the woman to ask her out to dinner, according to two people familiar with the exchange.

“If this makes you uncomfortable, pretend it never happened,” Mr. Gates wrote in an email, according to a person who read it to The New York Times.

The woman was indeed uncomfortable, the two people said. She decided to pretend it had never happened.

A year or two later, Mr. Gates was on a trip to New York on behalf of the Gates Foundation. He was traveling with a woman who worked for the foundation. Standing with her at a cocktail party, Mr. Gates lowered his voice and said: “I want to see you. Will you have dinner with me?” according to the woman.

About a year after the settlement — and less than two weeks after Ms. French Gates’s column in Time — The Times published an article detailing Mr. Gates’s relationship with Mr. Epstein. The article reported that the two men had spent time together on multiple occasions, flying on Mr. Epstein’s private jet and attending a late-night gathering at his Manhattan townhouse. “His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” Mr. Gates emailed colleagues in 2011, after he first met Mr. Epstein.

(Ms. Arnold, the spokeswoman for Mr. Gates, said at the time that he regretted the relationship with Mr. Epstein. She said that Mr. Gates had been unaware that the plane belonged to Mr. Epstein and that Mr. Gates had been referring to the unique décor of Mr. Epstein’s home.)

The Times article included details about Mr. Gates’s interactions with Mr. Epstein that Ms. French Gates had not previously known, according to people familiar with the matter. Soon after its publication she began consulting with divorce lawyers and other advisers who would help the couple divide their assets, one of the people said.

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I’m guessing this is all new news to you Blob. Easy to give away money when you have more than any human could possibly spend. But when you are in a position of power you don’t use that to get lucky…that is, if you are a decent human being.

No its not news to me ... so he's a dirty ole man who's reformed & he's now a humanitarian. Much better than being a trillionaire, an ugly minded narcissist with far-right beliefs who instead of giving helps to take away charities like USAID.

Shame on you

Every single thing is seen through the lens of race, ne Blo?

Lol. you're the one with the race obsession.

Shame on you

Shame on everybody that doesn't immediately crumble at the utterance of "far right", right?

It's time that you admit you're a racist.

.

Read Major Barbara by Bernard Shaw….Blob…..an essential step in your education. Here’s a synopsis:

Major Barbara is a 1905 play by George Bernard Shaw. It follows Barbara, an idealistic Salvation Army Major, and her estranged father, Andrew Undershaft, a ruthless arms manufacturer. The two clash over whether the poor should rely on spiritual charity or economic empowerment. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

The Core Conflict

1. Barbara Undershaft: A passionate idealist who believes saving souls and spreading morality is the only way to combat poverty. She is horrified to learn the Salvation Army depends on donations from her father (the arms dealer) and a whiskey distiller. [1]
2. Andrew Undershaft: An unapologetic capitalist who views poverty as the ultimate crime. He argues that his munitions business actually "saves" people by providing them with steady wages and food, and challenges Barbara's notion of charity. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
3. The Resolution: Barbara resigns from the Army in protest. Ultimately, she and her fiancé realize that to change the world, they must engage with the reality of power and money, embracing a new philosophy of "enlightened capitalism" rather than relying on religious guilt. [1]