This is a common misconception. His daddy loaned him a whopping 28 grand. Nothing mind blowing, and certainly not what you'd expect the heir of a freaking emerald mine to get their hands on.

Elon Musk got most of his capital early in his career from the sale of his first company, Zip2, which he co-founded with his brother Kimbal in 1995 using $28,000 borrowed from their father[1][6]. In 1999, Zip2 was sold to Compaq for $307 million, with Musk earning $22 million[1][6]. Musk then invested $10 million of his Zip2 proceeds into founding X.com, one of the first attempts at online banking, which later became PayPal[1]. After PayPal, Musk invested all of his proceeds into his new projects: SpaceX ($100 million), Tesla ($70 million), and SolarCity ($10 million) [1]. By 2008, he was almost penniless and living on $200 thousand monthly loans from his friends after a $20 million divorce[1]. However, his fortunes changed, and by 2017, his net worth had risen to $16 billion[1].

Citations: [1] https://www.toptal.com/finance/venture-capital-consultants/elon-musks-investments [2] https://time.com/6127754/elon-musk-net-worth-person-of-the-year/ [3] https://money.com/8-innovative-ways-elon-musk-made-money-before-he-was-a-billionaire/ [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk [5] https://financebuzz.com/jobs-elon-musk-had-before-wealthy [6] https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/origin-stories/elon-musk>

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Source for the pivotal claim: another article. The source of that article: a Rolling Stone interview of Musk himself.

You can't trust malignant narcissists about themselves and their early lives, especially not ones like Musk who lies about the death of his own child

[–] Feweroptions@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Okay, and the OP's source for Elon's success coming solely from daddy's money and nothing else is what?

Musk has publicly laid out that anybody can get rich writing software without much startup capital - which not only makes sense but by all accounts seems to be exactly what he did.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nobody said solely, but the source is daddy emeraldbucks himself.

Your hero isn't a genius. He's just a lucky narcissist with the money to buy succes and the shamelessness to constantly brag about how superior he thinks he is to everyone.

[–] Feweroptions@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're a fool if you think he's my hero

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

If you're not a fanboy, why are you going out of your way to run interference for him? Just like the taste of boots or are you one of those "billionaires get a bad rap" numbskulls?