Watching the world's richest man descend ever deeper into the Q-hole has been amazing. I blame economic anxiety 1/
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1595620347579142144
One thing I haven't seen discussed, however, is how inequality has magnified the influence of paranoid plutocrats. There have always been super-rich people disconnected from reality; that's what being surrounded by sycophants can do. But they matter much more now 2/
To put some numbers to it: 50 years ago J.Paul Getty was America's richest man, and a very strange guy. But he was worth "only" ~$2 billion. Until recently Musk was worth >100X times that. 3/
True, a billion $ isn't what it used to be: nominal GDP up by a factor of ~20, total wealth somewhat more. But Musk's spending power is still much bigger relative to America than Getty's was. So his solipsism can do far more damage than that of billionaires past 4/
The point is that being ultra-rich was always dangerous to one's mental health. But these days it matters more to the rest of us than it did in a more equal society 5/
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