LogFAQs > #979361692

ZayKayWill posted...

Do you really think that someone of average or of below average intelligence could have become literally the richest man alive? Yes, his wealth is inherited, but it's not like him inheriting that wealth just made him the richest man in the world overnight.

Inheriting wealth doesn't magically make one rich, but it does give significantly more opportunities to do so and significantly reduce the consequences of failure. Musk got to where he is now because he made a few good business deals, deals he was only able to access because of the wealth he inherited. That's more luck than intelligence: there are countless other people who came from similar backgrounds and failed because the deals they tried to make didn't pan out. That Musk succeeded doesn't indicate that he's particularly any more brilliant or business-savvy than them, it just looks like he is because of survivorship bias.

He's got some modicum of business competence, since you don't stumble into success like that completely blindly, but his success is overwhelmingly a matter of investing into companies that were able to yield a sizable return on that investment, a return that was largely independent (and in many cases, in spite) of any direct input on his part.