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Does Being Successful Make You a Villain in America? · Common Sense - Red State Finance

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] From Red State Finance, this is Common Sense, the news, the money, and the nonsense explained for people who think. Here are your hosts, Cole and Savannah.
• 0:15
  Here's a guy who builds rockets that land themselves, sells satellite internet to 13 million customers, and employs over 130,000 people at one car company. Hero, obviously. 44% of Americans don't like him.
• 0:30
  Okay, so what about a guy who lives tax-free on his own private island and once asked the British government for a 500 million pound lifeline for his airline? Villain? Twice as many people like him as dislike him.
• 0:44
  So here's the question. In America today, does getting rich make you the bad guy? Today, on Common Sense. Why Americans love small business and can't stand big business.
• 0:57
  Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the billionaire villain club. Why Richard Branson seems to get a pass. And the honest case for and against the people at the top. Stick around. [upbeat music] All right.
• 1:13
  Welcome to Common Sense from Red State Finance. Not left, not right. Just over it. I'm Savannah. I'm Cole. And today's question came straight from the boss. Does being successful make you a villain in America?
• 1:27
  I love this one because I think everybody has a gut answer, and it depends on which billionaire you picture. Let's start with the numbers. Gallup asked Americans about different economic ideas this summer.
• 1:40
  Small business, 95% positive. Everybody loves the corner bakery. Big business, 35%. Meanwhile, socialism hit 43% positive, the highest Gallup has ever measured. Socialism now polls better than big business.
• 1:57
  So we love the guy who opens one hardware store. The day it turns into Home Depot, he's a suspect. Pretty much. Then Pew asked if being extremely rich, like billions of dollars, is morally wrong. Overall, 18% said yes.
• 2:13
  Most people said it's not a moral issue at all. Okay, that's not so bad. But break it out by age. 18 to 29 year olds, a third say it's morally wrong. People 65 and up, 10%.
• 2:25
  So grandpa thinks you should get rich, and your nephew thinks you should apologize for it. And it splits by party too. 29% of Democrats, 7% of Republicans.
• 2:36
  New York's mayor, Zohran Mamdani, said it out loud on Meet the Press last year. Quote, "I don't think that we should have billionaires." [upbeat music] So let's do the poster child, Elon Musk. Of course.
• 2:50
  Here's the builder case. Christmas Eve 2008, Musk says Tesla was three days from bankruptcy when the funding came through, the last hour of the last day.
• 3:01
  He put in every dollar he had and borrowed from friends to pay rent. Fast-forward, Tesla had about 135,000 employees at the end of last year. SpaceX lands rockets on barges.
• 3:14
  Starlink has 13.6 million customers, a lot of them out in the country where decent internet never showed up. My cousin in Montana went from dial-up speeds to streaming football. She'd fight you over Starlink.
• 3:27
  And when SpaceX went public in June, The New York Times reported about 4,400 SpaceX employees stood to become millionaires. Not just executives, engineers, welders. Welder millionaires. I love that.
• 3:42
  And in 2021, after Senator Elizabeth Warren accused him of freeloading, Musk said he'd pay more than $11 billion in taxes that year. More than any American in history, he said. So by the builder scorecard, he's the guy.
• 3:57
  And yet YouGov tracks how Americans feel about business figures. Musk, 37% positive, 44% negative.
• 4:07
  And in 2025, the FBI warned about arson, gunfire, and vandalism against Teslas and dealerships in at least nine states. And look, you can hate his posts. That's America. But setting fire to a dealership?
• 4:22
  The guy selling that car isn't Elon. He's somebody's dad trying to hit his monthly number. [upbeat music] And it's not just Elon. Jeff Bezos. Amazon is the second largest corporate employer on the planet.
• 4:36
  More than one and a half million people. Your stuff shows up tomorrow. Sometimes today, which is honestly a little scary. YouGov has him at 35% positive, 37 negative. Zuckerberg, 29 positive, 43 negative.
• 4:53
  So the guys who built the stuff we use every day are underwater. And here's the part nobody likes to admit. Both sides have a villain billionaire. The left has Musk and Bezos.
• 5:04
  The right spent years on Bill Gates, and plenty of conservatives still do. So your villain basically depends on your cable package. Kind of. 10 years ago, it was Republicans mad at Silicon Valley.
• 5:16
  Now it's a lot of Democrats. So maybe it's not the money people hate. Maybe it's the politics that comes with it. Which brings us to the guy who seems to get a pass. [upbeat music] Richard Branson. Sir Richard.
• 5:31
  Dyslexic, left school at 16, started a student magazine, then a mail order record business with a buddy in 1970. Today, more than 40 Virgin companies in 35 countries employing over 60,000 people.
• 5:45
  And he flew to space on his own rocket plane, nine days before Bezos, by the way. He signed the giving pledge in 2013, promising to give away at least half his fortune. And YouGov has him at 29% positive, 14% negative.
• 6:01
  That's about two to one. So what's his secret? Part of it is the brand. Branson always played the underdog, the fun guy picking a fight with the stuffy big airline. Balloons, stunts, the big grin.
• 6:14
  The billionaire you'd actually wanna have a drink with. And look who else is on top. Warren Buffett, the most popular business figure in America on that list. 45 positive, 17 negative.
• 6:26
  He still lives in the Omaha house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. And Taylor Swift. Over $55 million in tour bonuses, including 100 grand for each truck driver. Truck drivers. Respect. Quick break.
• 6:43
  If you've got a relative who has opinions about rich people at every holiday dinner, our shop has a shirt for that. Not left, not right, just over it. Links in the show notes. Made by a small business. 95% approval.
• 6:57
  Cool. That's actually good. [upbeat music] But here's the thing about Branson. He's not a saint either. Uh-oh. He lives tax-free on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands.
• 7:10
  In 2020, he asked the British government for a loan, reportedly 500 million pounds, to save Virgin Atlantic. Critics pointed out he hadn't paid UK personal income tax in 14 years.
• 7:23
  In January, his name showed up in the Epstein files, a friendly email exchange from 2013. His team says contact was limited, and they turned down an Epstein donation after a background check.
• 7:35
  And just last week, he went after the White House on LinkedIn, so some folks on the right just got a new villain.
• 7:41
  So the beloved billionaire has an island, a bailout request, and now a political fight, and he's still more liked than disliked. Which tells you it's not really about the money.
• 7:53
  Branson isn't running your social feed or your shipping, and he looks like he's having fun. People forgive a lot for that. [upbeat music] Okay, let's argue it properly, the case that they've earned some of the heat. Go.
• 8:08
  Taxes. ProPublica got leaked IRS data in 2021. Bezos paid zero federal income tax in 2007 and in 2011. In 2011, he even got a $4,000 child tax credit. A child tax credit. For Jeff Bezos.
• 8:26
  Now, honesty check. Unsold stock isn't income under the law, and when Musk cashed in his options, he paid that giant bill. Then there's attitude.
• 8:36
  Bezos landed from space in 2021 and thanked every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, quote, "Because you guys paid for all of this." Read the room, Jeff. Then power.
• 8:49
  Reports this week say Musk personally ordered a Starlink slowdown that hit Ukraine's military. SpaceX hasn't commented. Either way, that's one man's decision affecting a war. And politics.
• 9:02
  Musk gave about $290 million in the last presidential election, and billionaires on the other side wrote big checks too. Spend like that and people stop seeing an inventor and start seeing a power broker.
• 9:14
  [upbeat music] And that's why the wealth tax fight is now on the ballot. California's Proposition 40, a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of the state's billionaires, roughly 250 people.
• 9:29
  The vote is November 3rd, and a poll this week had it at 46 yes, 43 no. So it's a coin flip. And here's the twist. The Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, opposes it, along with most Republicans.
• 9:43
  Their argument is the rich will just move and take their tax dollars with them. Okay, now give me the case that success does not make you a villain. First, 71% of the Forbes 400 are self-made, per Forbes.
• 9:57
  Most of these people didn't inherit it. They built it. Second, most of that money isn't sitting in a vault like Scrooge McDuck. It's stock. And who else owns that stock? Your pension fund. Your 401[k].
• 10:11
  Musk has been a trillionaire, a former trillionaire, and a trillionaire again this year, depending on SpaceX's stock price. That's paper. Third, some of them give it away for real.
• 10:23
  MacKenzie Scott has given away about $26 billion in five years. For comparison, Forbes estimates Bezos and his wife have given about 4.7 billion over their lifetimes. And fourth, America's always done this.
• 10:38
  100 years ago, people argued whether Rockefeller and Carnegie were robber barons or captains of industry. And Henry Ford doubled his workers' pay to $5 a day in 1914, and overnight, he was a national celebrity.
• 10:52
  [upbeat music] So, verdict. Does being successful make you a villain? No. I don't think success is the problem. I think it's what you do once you're up there.
• 11:04
  Pay your people well, pay your taxes, make something people want, and don't act like the rest of us paid for your space trip. I'll add one. Be careful about rooting against success in general.
• 11:16
  95% of us love small business. Every big company started as somebody's small business. Virgin was a kid selling records by mail. Tesla was three days from going broke.
• 11:27
  If we teach the next generation that getting rich makes you evil, fewer of them are going to try, and then nobody builds the next thing. Scrutiny is healthy. Envy isn't a plan. That's the show.
• 11:40
  And if today made you rethink what you've been told about money and who's got it, grab The Greatest Economic Lies Americans Are Told in the vault. Links in the description, along with the free newsletter.
• 11:51
  And if you're a billionaire listening to this... Hi, Elon... our sponsorship inbox is open. We'll see you next time. [upbeat music] You've been listening to Common Sense from Red State Finance.
• 12:04
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• 12:16
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