Latest / Commentary - TJ Meadows / Left Wastes No Time Bashing Musk, Capitalism

Transcript

Left Wastes No Time Bashing Musk, Capitalism · Commentary - TJ Meadows

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: SpaceX went public Friday, and in the process Elon Musk
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: became the first trillionaire in history. Maybe not as wealthy
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: as King Solomon, but certainly on his way. The IPO
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: priced shares at around one hundred and thirty five dollars.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The stock opened at one point fifty, climbed as high
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: as one sixty eight, and closed at one sixty one.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: That gave SpaceX a market capitalization of roughly two point
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: one trillion dollars. Forbes estimates Musk's net worth at approximately
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: one point one trillion, and like a smooth running Swiss watch,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the left wasted no time vilifying it all. Democratic US
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate Graham Platner responded by saying, Elon Musk just
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: became the world's first trillionaire. Let's make sure he's also
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the last. Think about that, Not how remarkable, not what
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: an achievement, Not look at the innovation that made this
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: all possible. No, let's make sure he's the last. My goodness,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: how far we've fallen to see that kind of thinking
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: inner mainstream public discourse, because lost in all the handbringing
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: over Musk's wealth is a much more important story. Some
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: forty four hundred SpaceX employees became millionaires when the company
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: went public. Many became multimillionaires, some became deca millionaires. There
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: were even a few hecta millionaires that's one hundred million
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: dollars plus. This wasn't limited to executives sitting in corner offices.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: It included engineers, technicians, support staff, and even cafeteria workers
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: who received equity in the company. That's awesome with the
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: capital a. Will it happen at every company? Of course not.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Most startups fail. Many companies never go public. Investors lose
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: money every day betting on ideas that never materialize. But
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that's the bargain, that's the risk. Think about the college
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: graduate whose parents wanted him to take the Saale rout
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and sign on with General Electric. Instead, he rolled the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: dice and joined a little company called SpaceX. Today he's
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: semi retired, a multimillionaire at thirty seven. Only in America.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just employees. Investors who bet on Musk,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: bet on SpaceX, and been on a vision made money Friday,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: lots of it. They could have lost every bit as
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: easily as they gained. That's what investing is. So why
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: do so many of the left portray success as something sinister.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Why is a trillionaire treated as evidence of social failure
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: rather than human achievement? My two cents, because if people
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: continue to admire extraordinary success, and they should, they may
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: also continue to appreciate the economic system that made it possible.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And that's a problem for those who prefer government control
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: over private enterprise. On a day when Americans could have
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: celebrated innovation, risk taking, and vision, many instead chose rem
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And we wonder why some people respond to success of
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: others with envy rather than inspiration. When achievement is constantly
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: portrayed as exploitation, people stop focusing on what others have
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: built and start focusing on what they don't have. That's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: not optimism, that's not aspiration. That's propaganda, and it's doing
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: real damage to the American spirit.