Billionaire Wealth Has Doubled So Far This Decade

The economic illiteracy on Listnook is sometimes astounding. First: The way the tax structure in the US works today, rising GDP equals rising tax revenues. Call it good or bad or whatever, it’s a simple economic fact. And when all those women joined the workforce, they all paid taxes, and the economic output they created also generated tax revenues. And and…a job has to exist in order for someone to move from not working to working. Women didn’t just magically invent jobs for themselves that allowed them to create a 2nd income. Employers realized the opportunity to expand the available workforce by hiring women and gain a competitive edge through increased efficiencies, or increased productivity, or whatever made it worth creating the jobs. That’s how market economics works. Which brings us to… Second: You use the word “exploit” to mean “give jobs to people who want them, and deliver products and services to people who are willing to pay for them.” People want jobs, capitalism provides jobs. People want stuff, capitalism provides stuff. What’s wrong with “exploiting” people by paying them for the value they add to your company? And what’s wrong with being “exploited” by getting paid for your skills and labor that deliver value to an employer? Here’s some data for you: | Metric | 2017 | 2026 (latest available) | Notes / Change | |-----------------------------|-----------------------------------|------------------------------------------|---------------| | Tesla Employees | 37,543 | 134,785 (end of 2025) | ~3.6× growth | | SpaceX Employees | ~6,000–7,000 | ~13,000–18,000 (2025–early 2026) | ~2–3× growth; estimates vary | | Neuralink Employees | ~20–50 (early startup) | ~500–630 (early 2026) | 10–30× growth | | Tesla Annual Revenue | $11.76 billion | $94.83 billion (FY 2025) | ~8× growth | | SpaceX Annual Revenue | ~$1–2 billion (est.) | $15–16 billion (2025) | ~8–15× growth (Starlink dominant) | | Elon Musk Net Worth | ~$13–20 billion | ~$810–850 billion (March 2026) | ~40–60× growth | Between 2017 and 2026, Elon Musks companies have added well over 100,000 jobs, and added about $100B/yr in direct economic activity. This is just the cold numbers. It doesn’t factor in indirect economic activity (like the benefits airlines get by offering Starlink on flights) or the overall benefits of the technological advances made by these companies. And the only downside is we have to tolerate an often insufferable billionaire. Pretty good bargain if you ask me. Finally: A common economic fallacy employed when the “capitalism exploits people on the bottom” trope is invoked is failure to acknowledge economic mobility. Do fast food chains “exploit” unskilled minimum wage workers? No. In exchange for making minimum wage at an entry level job, the employee gains experience and skills that they can then use to get better paying employment, either through promotion at the same company or by leaving to better opportunities. If a restaurant only ever pays it’s line staff only minimum wage, and is in business for 20 years and makes a healthy revenue stream for it’s owner for those 20 years, has that owner exploited employees for 20 years? Of course not. The average tenure of a fast food employee is a year. If over the 20 years, thousands of people have decided to take a job there, gotten what they wanted out of it - or maybe not - then moved on with the money and experience from having the job, that’s not the same as the same 10 employees working there 20 years earning nothing but minimum wage, which is the way “capitalism exploits people on the bottom” is represented.