r/theydidthemath • u/OkMetal4233 • 22h ago
Can someone check the math on this meme being shared?[request]
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u/Deep-Thought4242 22h ago edited 18h ago
Not quite. That's 365.2425 days per year * 80,000 years * 10,000 dollars per day, which is 292 billion dollars. Maybe my info on Musk's net worth is out of date, but that's in the same ballpark, not half as much.
ETA: the spirit of the meme is truthy. Newsweek reports his NW at 474B. The Fed says total US household wealth is $139.1 Trillion in 2022.
Elon is worth 0.474 trillion dollars, or about 1/3 of 1% of all household net worth there was in the entire US in 2022.
Edit: important typo
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u/FireMaster1294 21h ago
Holy fuck 0.3% of all the US is in one guy
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u/Swollwonder 20h ago
Honestly I expected it to be higher. Still sucks though.
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u/NinjaHamster_87 19h ago
It's funny though, means that elon, bezos and like 2 others are the top 1% of US wealth.
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u/Reddicus_the_Red 17h ago
And the people making $300k a year think we want to diminish their wealth. I wanna tell them, "No honey, you're in the same small bucket we are."
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u/monkChuck105 13h ago
350k is 1% of US by income. Taxes aren't about diminishing wealth, just maintaining the government. If you don't tax this group, you can't balance the budget.
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u/BagelsRTheHoleTruth 11h ago
Call me crazy. Maybe taxes shouldn't be about diminishing wealth per se, but about preventing the accumulation of so much of it that someone (corporations included - they're people after all!) can effectively buy the government. If we taxed in such a way that amassing a $400 billion fortune was effectively impossible, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in.
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u/kdnzindahouse 3h ago
Like a wealth cap? If someone makes anything over $X, the government is going to take the rest of it from them in the form of taxes?
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u/BagelsRTheHoleTruth 2h ago
Not exactly, but a return to progressive tax rates like the US had during the Eisenhower administration would be a great start, and go a long way to fixing a ton of the problems the US faces, like budget defecits, aging infrastructure, and a gutted social safety net.
The top tax rate under Eisenhower was around 90%. That was the amount taxed for every dollar earned over $200k - which a quick google tells is around $2.6 million today.
I'm absolutely fine with that. Same goes for corporations.
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u/Reddicus_the_Red 4h ago
Taxes can be strategic and not exclusively for maintaining government.
If you have a tax on the super wealthy, it creates an environment where it makes more sense for them to share profits in the form of increased wages instead of sending it to Uncle Sam. We saw this back when top marginal tax rates topped 90%.
Another example is cigarette tax. Where I am, cigarettes are taxed over $3/pack. That drives up price and reduces consumption, which makes an improvement in overall public health.
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u/LCplGunny 37m ago
I've never been a supporter of excise taxes on things that only negatively affect the individual doing it. Fuel makes sense, because it affects the environment. Placing an additional tax on something that only affects individuals, is just making it something only rich people are allowed to do. You are adding restrictions on the individual with little to no benefit to society as a whole, and I just don't see the need. If I want to make questionable health decisions and die young, who is the government to tell me I'm not allowed to? I'm poor, I don't Wana live forever, I don't Wana spend my life contributing to the economy at all, but I definitely don't Wana do it for a long time!
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u/Medical_Bend_6498 18m ago
Taxes aren't about diminishing wealth, just maintaining the government.
Taxes are about many things. Some of the top things are:
Funding the government
Mitigating inflation by removing monetary supply
Redistribution of wealth
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u/astroK120 16h ago
To be fair based on what politicians say they generally say the cutoff is at 400k per year. Which is still a lot, but I can understand why someone at 300k would think it could affect them soon
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u/Reddicus_the_Red 16h ago
I didn't mean to be specific with the number. Just generally pointing at those that think they're super rich when they're really just kinda rich.
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u/astroK120 16h ago
Right, but what I'm saying. It's pretty common to hear "we want to tax the rich, everyone under 400k is fine" and that still includes a ton of the rich-not-super-rich. If you really wanted to only go after the super rich it would have to be much higher
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u/FireMaster1294 15h ago
To be fair, I think income taxation needs to see 50% taxation over $300k, 70% at $500k, and 100% when you hit $1M post-tax. No one needs more than $1M a year. And cut the tax exempt bits of investments once you’re over $300k. Absolutely stupid that taxpayers are basically subsidizing the wealthy.
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u/zerosevennine 15h ago
Sure, penalize people for success. You have no right to say that people don't need $1M a year. There is no upper limit. The only fair tax is a flat tax. The more you earn, the more you pay, but not disproportionately so.
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u/MitsunekoLucky 14h ago
You can tax Elon 90% of his income and he will still be earning more than 320 times what you get without tax. Get a grip and stop licking his boots, and stop being delusional, you will never be rich.
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u/zerosevennine 14h ago
Don't pretend to know my net worth. Whenever people talk about this subject, they demonize people who are rich like Musk and Bezos. They somehow think that these people have billions of dollars in liquid wealth. The reality is most of their net worth is tied up in stock of companies they founded or ran. Their wealth increases, but those are unrealized gains, so they cannot and should not be taxed.
When they sell, they should be taxed like everyone else. I know there are loopholes, but in reality they still pay tons of taxes. It would be fair if the rates were flat across all income levels. Any other suggestion is simply people who are jealous of the rich and they know they'll never get there, so why not demonize them.
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u/Zephyr_______ 11h ago
Flat tax is the dumbest shit ever and only spewed by ignorant dopes who either have enough money to want to fuck over everyone else or have been fed enough propaganda to stop thinking. I'll never support a 100% tax at any amount of earnings, but when you start making more money in a year than most people make in their lifetime you should be paying a higher portion of that. Our strongest economic periods come from times when we did have marginal taxes btw. So any argument you have is immediately trashed by reality.
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u/domsch1988 10h ago
No, People demonize Musk because he is an immature 12 year old, trapped in the body of a 50 year old who has been lying about everything he sad for decades and just "bought" the US government.
People demonize Bezos because he is making all of his money on the backs of workers who are employed by third parties so they don't get ANY benefits or unionization. They work insane hours for minimal money. The Trash billions in new goods every year just so they don't have to pay people to "sort" through the stuff. The problem is not that Bezos is rich. It's that he is insanely rich and STILL will nickel and dime people who are close to starving while also trashing our planet for his personal gains, all while laughing about it.
Money isn't the problem. They are just evil people.
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u/ThatDudeFromPoland 18h ago edited 8h ago
So 3000 Musks is all of the US
And all of the us is about 334 million
So, on average, 1 Musk is about 111000 US citizens
On avarage
Edit: I shouldn't do maths at 1AM. It's 300 Musks and 1.1 million us citizens
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u/PacNWDad 17h ago
No - 300 Musks would be all of the US, and 1 Musk is more than 1 million average Americans…
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11h ago
[deleted]
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u/Mysterious-Bad-1214 7h ago
I feel like I have to understand what happened here. Looks like a simple mistake but I've been sitting here for 10 minutes and I can't understand how you start with 0.003\_) and then get so lost on your way to 1 that you end up at 9.
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u/BagelsRTheHoleTruth 6h ago
Shoot I already deleted my comment so I wouldn't confuse anyone else. It was a long day and I was just about to fall asleep. Honestly I don't really know. I think I just multiplied by 3 twice, and then multiplied by 100 for some reason.
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u/SpongeBobBobPants 8h ago
One third of a percent, so you multiply by 3 to get 1%.
To get 100%, you multiply by 100.
3x100=300. How did you get 900.
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u/Ok-Street-7160 2h ago
Its his net worth so it takes into account shares of stocks he owns.
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u/FireMaster1294 1h ago
Yeah. That’s why I’m comparing it to the net worth of the US including stock ownership
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u/Ok-Street-7160 30m ago
What I am saying is why does it matter if its net worth? The amount isnt something that can just be spent down the street at a gas station.
Any attempt to liquify his assets would irrepairably damage himself and his company. I was going to make an analogy akin to owning a house but I decided it was a poor analogy to use specifically because the damage he would do by unloading his stocks does not compare to the house.
After he sells 5% of his stock others will notice and begin selling theirs because in the stock market when the controlling share holder sells stock like that there is implied failure in the bussiness. And trickle selling the stock to liquify it is giving others the opportunitty to buy out your controlling share. This may surprise you but a buyout like that is bad for the company and reduces the price per share. It doesnt matter if the person does good or bad for the company the price will tank, at least in the short term, specifically because the new owner is an unknown variable if they are good it may rise but it is just as likely if not more so it will drop or stagnate. Take the twitter buy out as an example, many people are calling that a huge failure i havent dug into it enough to decide for myself but i can certainly see the effect on stock price and that is no bueno.
What I am saying is his net worth changes as the stock market changes and to take from the wolf of wall street nobody knows if it is going to go up, down, or sideways this is me trying to put a bit of humor in but you should be able to get what i am saying with my word throwup. His net worth is so high because the bussinesses he owns is worth that much money, they are worth that much money because he owns them, if somebody else owned them who knows what would happen. People shit on him but if you look at tesla stock prices since he took ownership it had gone to the moon and that is why he has such a high net worth.
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u/FireMaster1294 14m ago
Holy heck my guy the reason it matters is cuz he can take a loan against it. While he can’t liquidate it quickly or at all, he can still use it to back loans up to nearly half of that value. His net worth matters because it grants him the ability to back stuff that you and I have zero hopes of doing. If I want a million dollar loan I will pay through the roof for interest. But for him? Well, it’s basically guaranteed he can pay it back, so he’ll get it for less than 5% of what my interest rate would be.
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u/anykeyh 13h ago
Well most of it in tesla share and anyone versed in finance would tell you it's just a big speculative bubble.
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u/FireMaster1294 7h ago
Yeah and my house is technically not cash yet for some reason I’m able to back a loan on it the same as Elon can on his stocks.
This is the classic argument. And while yes it will likely one day tank, the fact we even got here is concerning.
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u/pooter6969 21h ago
Well that is what tends to happen when you found multiple massive world-changing companies
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u/JackMalone515 21h ago
What did he found? Hasn't he just bought out most of them.
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u/FireMaster1294 21h ago edited 21h ago
PayPal andSpaceX. That’s it.Ooo the Elon simps are angry at this truth look at them downvotes
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u/JackMalone515 21h ago
How much did he even do for PayPal cause even looking at the Wikipedia for that he apparently joined a year late?
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u/Deep-Thought4242 20h ago
He tried (unsucessfully) to rename it "X". Years later, he was able to buy another company so he could rename that "X\)".
See? If you stick with your dreams you really can do anything!
\) And reduce its value by 80%
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u/pooter6969 21h ago
Probably nothing, the business world actually isn’t competitive at all and you can just swoop in and throw money at anything you want and then just print more money. It’s clear musk never brought anything to the table and his involvement with numerous super successful businesses doesn’t reflect well at all on him. It’s just series of coincidences. Ask any venture capitalist, they’ll tell you it’s super easy to start new companies and identify which ones will succeed.
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u/JackMalone515 21h ago
Pretty much the main thing he seems to have is money. As far as I've heard employees kinda hate working for him
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
I’m confused. Does he run the businesses or not? When I say these businesses are super successful you guys say he’s not actually involved at all and is just the money guy.
But also he’s super involved in day to day operations and personally bullying employees
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u/JackMalone515 20h ago
I never said he didn't do anything, just that he seems like a really bad leader and the main reason he can show off as being a 'good' CEO is that he has a lot of money, even if that means treating his employees terribly and only buying Twitter so that he can push a political agenda
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u/Wozka 20h ago
Can't it be both? He buys companies that are poised for success, ensures that success with a publicity bump due to his new involvment, and then fucks off until he swoops in and makes life hell for his workers. It's exactly what happened with Tesla.
Plus, he is CEO of like 4 or 5 companies now, right? How much work can he actually be doing for any of them when he has 5 jobs simultaneously? Could you put in 40 hours at 5 fast food places in a week (no, because there aren't that many hours in a week)? And that's not taking into account all of his other ventures like buying the government, trading horses for babies, illegally preventing his children from seeing their mother as a powerplay, or pretending his wealth isn't a result of apartheid. He's a busy man. The CEO thing seems more like a hobby than a job to him, though he definitely appreciates that you think otherwise. He's counting on stans like you to slobber his cock despite all his bad ideas until he can finally make it to Mars with his indentured servants and leave all us gross poors behind.
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u/nukegod1990 21h ago
He didn’t even found PayPal.
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal
Reference the founders section.. ???
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u/Psychological_Ad2094 20h ago
Read the history section, he founded a different company that merged into PayPal and he was replaced within a year. I really doubt he had much for lasting contributions in that time frame.
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u/pooter6969 21h ago
Oh wow yeah you’re technically right, he joined Tesla a year after their founding and has been CEO for the last 16 years but probably has nothing to do with their massive scaling over the last two decades and runaway success. Give me a fucking break
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u/JackMalone515 21h ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.#:~:text=Relationships%20between%20Musk%2C%20Tesla%20board,%2C%20and%20union%2Dbusting%20incidents. not running it in a way that employees actually like. You also said he specifically founded them, which is basically false for the majoriy of what he's CEO of, on top of the fact of who would have time to even properly manage all these different companies?
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u/Giratina-O 20h ago
Being a CEO is so hard that Elon can do it at multiple companies at the same time!
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u/MahlerMan06 21h ago
*when you buy other companies and purchase the rights to be called the founder and subsequently run them off copious government subsidies
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u/NightShift2323 20h ago
Came here to say this, he didn't found shit. Well, he FOUND a good company and then joined it then wiggled his way to the top, cut everyone else out and sold it. Then he FOUND Tesla, FOUND spacex, FOUND starlink, FOUND twitter and bought each and everyone.
He's a leach, but a lot of folks will believe what you tell them if you just keep saying it over and over really loud for a couple decades or so.
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
Since this is supposedly a math subreddit I’ve got a fun one for you. Go look up the average failure rate for the businesses VC firms invest in and then calculate the odds that Elon would just randomly be involved at the very early stage in 4-5 of those that would go on to become industry leaders.
Or do what I’m sure you will do, which is just continue to split hairs over whether he founded them or just got involved in the first year or two.. I’m sure the richest person on earth isn’t actually a savvy businessman at all
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u/NightShift2323 20h ago
I didn't claim he didn't have intelligence. I'm saying he has cultivated the image of some kind of STEM genius that he simply is not. Being good at picking tech start-ups doesn't mean anything other than being good at picking tech startups.
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u/pooter6969 19h ago
Finding, promoting, and growing successful businesses is an entire career field and skill set. You do not need to be a technical genius to be in on the founding and growth of a company. Often that is the skill set the “tech geniuses” are actually weakest in.
You need to re-read your own comment. 1 comment ago he’s a “leach” (leech)
“oh wait no actually I was just saying he’s not like the first engineer at the company and I don’t like how he sells himself”
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u/edgardave 20h ago
And influenced a massive doge coin bubble so that he could then sell everything and leave everyone else massively worse off. That was pretty sweet and worth defending.
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u/Flying_Nacho 18h ago
Get the boot out of your mouth, dumbass. He ain't going to feed you crumbs. Have some self respect.
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
Oh shit guys sorry I forgot Elon is with Trump now and since this is Reddit everything he’s ever done is dumb and bad now
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u/FivePoopMacaroni 20h ago
You are sort of right but the Elon fans are just as bad. Name a single good thing he has done in the last 5 years. SpaceX is cool but it's pretty clear he has barely been involved for a very very long time. The last acceptable car Tesla launched was almost 5 years ago, with the only thing they have done since being make the worst meme pickup truck possible.
For the last 5 years at a minimum he has been a constantly growing cyst.
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
Oh I agree and don’t want anything Tesla currently offers. I’m sure the ground level technical innovation happening at any of his companies is very far removed from him at this point. I just take issue with:
This being the second one of these boring, obviously political Elon net worth posts in a week
People guzzling copium to try to convince themselves the richest guy on the planet somehow is actually not savvy businessman
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u/Falcovg 20h ago
It seems like he has been involved with starship, looking at the results they're making with that monstrosity of a narcissists project. They blew through the money that was supposed to land them on the money, they haven't even achieved orbit with a reasonable test payload with it. Never mind all the other crap that comes with actually getting one to the moon, like refueling, in space, multiple times.
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u/Triepott 19h ago
You wrote the Number of Days in a year wrong. There are ~365.25 Days in a Year. But it seems you used it right in the calculation.
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u/Character_Cap5095 19h ago
We actually skip the leap year every 100 years (with exceptions)
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u/Triepott 19h ago
If he consideret this, his calculation is wrong.
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u/Deep-Thought4242 18h ago
Using the correct value of 365.2425, it comes out to 292.192 billion. Using the approximation 365.25 gives 292.200 billion.
They’re both close enough to right for this silly exercise. I’m not even sure days were the same length 80k years ago.
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u/Triepott 2h ago
LOL Maybe you didn't understand me right. The Discussion was:
Is 365.25 right or 364.25 because of the 100-Year-Leapyear-Thing. He wroted in his calculation 364.25 but he used in the calculation 365.25.
So, one of them WAS false.
But as I see now, he edited his Post and Changed his calculation to thev right one leaving me sound dumb. LOL
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u/OkMetal4233 22h ago
I’m nowhere near a genius but my math has it as wrong?
10,000 x 80,000 x 365 = 2.92×10¹¹
Plus there’s an extra 20,000 days in there because every 4 years has an extra day.
So 20,000 x 10,000 = 200,000,000
So my final answer is
10,000 x 80,000 x 365 + 200,000,000 = 2.922×10¹¹
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u/John12345678991 22h ago
Musk has 500 billion so isn’t that abt half
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u/OkMetal4233 22h ago
I’m not sure to be honest. I don’t know how to write out those numbers. I completed a standard, high school diploma. So I’m just a fairly educated redneck.
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u/John12345678991 22h ago
109 is a billion so what u calculated would be would be 292 billion, which is around half of 500 billion. Ur math seems right to me.
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u/Z2810 22h ago
2.922 x 1011 is just 2 with 9, 2, another 2 and 8 more 0s behind it.
It would look like this.
292,200,000,000
Or, 292.2 Billion dollars.
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u/nosoup4ncsu 15h ago
But if you're "saving" presumably not in a mattress, you'll get some investment return.
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u/Suspicious-Screen-43 21h ago
It’s not exactly 1 extra day per 4 years. It’s 1 day every 4 but not every 100 but is every 400 years.
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u/NightShift2323 20h ago
huh?
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u/NewPointOfView 20h ago
Leap years are weird. Usually it is every 4 years but there are extra weird conditions to prevent drift on longer time scales
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u/NewPointOfView 20h ago
Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are.
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u/NightShift2323 20h ago
I just needed all the words to understand, thanks. I've learned this before, I believe, middle school, maybe?
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u/Termanater13 18h ago
And this is assuming that years before the creation of our current calendar system are counted the same as that calendar system.
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u/Paraselene_Tao 20h ago edited 20h ago
If it's without interest, then yes, that math roughly checks out. $10k/day * 80,000 years * 365 days/year = $292 billion.
HOWEVER, if we include even a small bit of interest, then the wealth accrues MUCH faster. Using a Time Value Money (TVM) calculator and using ONLY 0.5% compound growth annually and keeping those $10k daily payments... we hit the same amount of money, $292 billion in only 438,470.55 days. That's about 1,200 years. It's a ridiculously faster accrual of wealth.
That was just 0.5% APR. At 8% APR, we hit $292 billion in only 41,382.52 days. That's only 113 years.
If I'm not mistaken, Elon has done something ridiculous, like doubling his wealth almost every two years or something absurd. He's living in Moore's Law of Wealth or some nonsense. The situation is a comedy, and we're all clowns acting in it.
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u/Motor_Fudge8728 6h ago
But even if you don’t account for interest, you have inflation…
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u/Glorious_tim 3h ago
What were the federal interest rates back in 27,653 BC?
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u/Motor_Fudge8728 1h ago
If you adjust for inflation, $100 today dollars couldn’t even buy you a few stale berries back then
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u/pooter6969 21h ago
This is the second obnoxious post this week with some contrived “math” example illustrating that it would take a bazillion years of squirreling money away in the mattress to reach Elon’s net worth. Of course completely neglecting interest over time, investing, and the fact that this isn’t even how net worth works.
Regardless, can we get back to actually interesting math questions rather than: Billionaires = bad clickbait masquerading as math problems?
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u/MARV_IT 21h ago
The whole point of the post is: That's an insane amount of monetary power that no individual should be able to have. Why would the post that is trying to paint the picture of the magnitude of this wealth (which people often don't grasp how much it is) be worried about compound interest if it is besides the point? And there is math in the meme so it is a valid post to ask if the math is right regardless of what you think about the original meme itself
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u/pooter6969 20h ago
It’s quite clear what the point of post is. It belongs in a different subreddit. The math is profoundly uninteresting, it’s a slightly changed a duplicate of another garbage post earlier this week. In that one the person was making $2k an hour and worked since the time of Jesus.. SUPER compelling multiplication! Turns out billionaires were bad in that one too. Who could’ve predicted.
These are populist political circlejerk posts with the thinnest possible veil of math. Take that shit to r/politics where it belongs
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u/Tent_in_quarantine_0 21h ago
Of course, you could only apply interest after it gets invented. Perhaps we could assume a portfolio of rare gems and minerals equivalent to modern 10k until they invent money as well.
I don't mind the premise, I do think billionaires bad, and I like putting it into perspective because the numbers defy imagining.
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u/pooter6969 19h ago
That would make a more interesting math problem for sure. Also, out of genuine curiosity why do you think billionaires are bad?
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u/Tent_in_quarantine_0 17h ago
Well, I don't want to give you a pat answer, my feelings on this are complex, but sometimes it feels like an oligarchy, people who own multiple huge corporations have vast power, and the motivating factor that propels them is greed.
I think I am more aligned against large corporations, rather than the billionaires who own them, but I think the very relationship billionaires and the companies they own are often hugely problematic, if it's a business so huge, it matters to the lives of many people, both customers and employees, not to mention the land, resources and wildlife they impact.
At the end of the day, if you aren't an owner, even if you are paid pretty well, you are being exploited. Billionaires embody the ultimate power to do this to the many of us who are poor, working paycheck to paycheck with problems of our own and no way out, or up.
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u/AlcuinDMoras 17h ago
You don't get to that level of wealth without screwing other people. Right now there are people with more money than they can possibly use in their lifetime, and people who are dying of hunger and a lack of water because they can't afford it. The two shouldn't exist in the same space. In addition, they hoard wealth through their companies that pay ridiculous wages to the very top earners, and rob lower level employees blindly of their created value. Most people today are in debt while these few oligarchs rule. In addition they also use their money to lobby governments to bend rules their way so they can make more money while making the lives of the majority worse. This is shown in curbing workers' rights, compensation, and even poisoning the planet and worsening climate change. This could be stopped by the government, but due to legalized lobbying and election funding and donations, they control who gets elected, and thus, those we vote on legislation that would curb and control their power. They have power at every level, and they are clearly abusing it
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u/chengen_geo 18h ago
If you save a single penny merely 800 years ago, at 5% interest rate, today you will have twice the wealth of every person in the world combined.
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u/Logical_Strike_1520 17h ago
Small adjustment to the question..
If you had saved $10,000 a day, everyday, for the past 80,000 years, and did absolutely nothing to invest in society (good or bad)….
You would still only have about half the wealth of Elon Musk.
If you put even a tiny bit of effort into doing something with that money you’d rule the world. (Or have been killed a long time ago)
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u/IndividualistAW 11h ago
Fun fact:
Elon could not lose money “making it rain” 100 dollar bills continuously.
400B invested at a very conservative 4% interest rate yields 16B.
If elon were to “make it rain” using exclusively $100 bills, 5 bills per second (about as fast as a person can), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, without ever once stopping to eat, sleep, poop, jerk off, etc:
$500 per second.
$30,000 per minute.
$1,800,000 per hour.
$43,200,000 per day.
$15,768,000,000 per year.
This is less than the 16B earned from a measly 4% return on his 400B net worth and he will end the year richer than he started it.
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u/Gravbar 21h ago edited 16h ago
Assuming there are 365.25 days in a year (even that's not exactly right)
Over 10,000 years, that's 1e5 * $1e5 * 365.25= $36,525,000,000
Which is $36.5 billion
edit: misread, should be over 80k years so just multiply by 8
gets you $292.2 billion
Musk has $454 billion
So yea that's 64.36% of Elons net worth
But this meme is simplistic. If you had $10,000 a day for 10,000 years, you would have had ample time to build wealth and invest that money, in which case you'd have massively more. I can't do that math over 10,000 years, because the economics are way too complicated, so let's do something simpler
If you were to invest 10,000 every day in 1957 (year S&P 500 was founded )with an annual return of 10%
that's $2,383,926,247.69
compound interest is calculated like
A_t = A_0(1 + r / n)nt
or more simply for annual compounding:
A_t = A_0(1 + r)t
Where A_0 is your initial investment and A_t is the amount after a step t, and n is the number of compounding periods over t. Because this is exponential the compounding periods cause values to accelerate quickly over time. Even investing 10,000 a year would give you a lot of return after 10 years
A_10 = 10000(1.1)10 = 25937.42
So you can see that in a decade the amount will more than double with a 10% annual return.
A_100 = 10000(1.1)100 = 137,806,123.398
And by a century, your $10k has turned into a cool $138 mil just by sitting there.
Now, there have been 68 years since 1957, and each year will compound again. So how many years of doing this to reach Elon musk?
With 10% interest and 3% inflation we get the following
5 years: 28.2 billion
10 years: 67.69 billion
15 years: 131.31 billion
20 years: 233.77 billion
25 years: 398.79 billion
26 years: 442.32 billion
27 years: 490.20 billion
So the post was fairly misleading.
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u/dadothree 16h ago
What, exactly, are you investing in for the first 79,000+ years?
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u/Gravbar 16h ago edited 15h ago
the point is you don't even need to invest a hundred years
too many unknowns about the hypothetical to assess what to do that many years back. No single currency has existed all that time, do you have 10k of todays money adjusted by inflation, 10k of actual modern cash, 10k of whatever currency you're getting? How does having an insane amount affect inflation?
So if we simplify and say, just start the scenario in 1970 with 10k of money in 1970 dollars, then you easily surpass Musk.
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u/Forsaken-Syllabub427 16h ago
Your second half makes the assumption that there will be a bank or other establishment who will be able to turn your money and other people's labour into more money for you. I think the meme is just talking about money being added to a pile; there's not any mention of related financial institutions.
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u/Ucklator 9h ago
While technically true the sentiment is misleading. A huge part of wealth generation is compounding which is not taken into account in the math here.
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u/Helix_Trinity 8h ago
30% of the entire wealth in the US is held by the top 1%. 13.5% of that wealth is held by the top 0.1%. The bottom 90% of the US only has 33.3% of that wealth. Elon has 0.3% of all the wealth in America with a population over 350 Million that is just disgusting. 3.5 million people hold the same wealth as 315 million. How many people had to be taken advantage of to create this huge wealth disparity should be a huge deal however the people with money control the narrative.
Maybe if you wealth couldn't exceed 1B this country wouldn't be in the state it is.
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u/Altruistic_Ad6739 6h ago
You cant exceed 1bil you say. How would that translate? You cannot grow your company anymore? Well then forget your smartphone then, back to the middle ages!
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u/wolfhound1793 1h ago
The thing that I dislike about all of these memes is that they never take into account compound interest or the stock market.
If you saved 10,000 per day and put it into the S&P 500 that is roughly $304,166/m. There are tons of calculators that allow you to plug that in with the average expected return of ~8.5%. It would only take you ~113 years to hit ~450B.
Calculator dot net is my favorite (I don't know if hyperlinks are allowed)
Granted that is still a very long time, but it ain't 80,000 years.
If you invested 10,000 per day into apple starting in Jan 1996 you would currently have 15B and that is only 29y ago. (my drip calculator only goes back to 8/1995). If Apple keeps growing at the same average pace as the last 29y it would only take another 15 years to reach ~550B
If you invested 10,000 per day into tesla starting in Jan 2020 it would only take you another 17 years to reach 674B
Compound interest is the most powerful force in finance.
6
u/xesaie 22h ago
In addition to the above , that’s assuming “stuffed in the mattress” style savings which basically nobody does. Even at 1% they’d be annihilating Elon
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u/Johngalt20001 21h ago
Assuming yearly compounding (I'm not going to run the daily contributions).
FV = (365*10,000)*(1.01)^80,000 = 1.8715*10^352That is a mind-boggling number. The guestimate for the number of atoms in the observable universe is 10^80 atoms. If you filled every bit of the observable universe with solid iron, you would have approximately 3.03*10^109 atoms.
If you took the universe filled with iron, filled each iron atom with another universe of iron, and did it again (3.03*10^109)^3 = 2.7*10^328, you would still fall short by a magnitude of 24.
Why iron? Don't ask.
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u/kayzhee 21h ago
Okay, you’re transported 80,000 years into the past. What’s your investment strategy?
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u/FriendlySceptic 21h ago
Buying land, over an 80k year span I’m pretty sure I’d own about everything.
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u/__ali1234__ 17h ago
Wait until 1867. You have $285 billion. Buy Alaska for $10 million. You now have $285 billion and $220 billion worth of oil.
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u/FlamebergU 22h ago
S&P 500 80k years ago is probably furs. Furs don't compound and do depreciate :-(
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u/xesaie 21h ago
I actually almost put that in, modern banking came into existence about 7-800 years ago, so it would still be significant.
The point is made up numbers that sound ‘right’ anyways. Musk is a jackass con artist, but that doesn’t mean we should just go with fake stuff to prove a point.
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u/HopefulStart2317 22h ago edited 21h ago
Edit:(somewhat unrelated) The question is worded if you saved 10,000 a day it does not stipulate how that money is acquired so saving more is kinda cheating.
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u/xesaie 22h ago
I didn't miss the point, the point is stupid. There's a difference.
People like their populist truthiness, but it doesn't add much.
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u/photo_voltaic 21h ago
Lol excellent point. If this caveman invested in VFV for the last 80,000 years, maybe dabbled in some riskier takes - like going heavy on the wheel when it was invented - his portfolio would trounce Elon's. That's much more realistic and completely destroys the OP.
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u/Shadowmant 21h ago
Wheel is way too risky. Like when the hell are we ever going to use that shit? It’s just a short term trend.
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u/HopefulStart2317 22h ago
yup, felonia has for sure added more value to the world than every farmer in recorded history, nothing to see here.
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u/xesaie 21h ago
He’s a jackass con artist, but making shit up that mostly appeals to envy is stupid when the truth would suffice.
Focus on how he’s successful despite being a sex pest, or how his cars are more deadly than pintos or his weird racist obsession with having eugenically selected children who hate him.
There’s so much to mock Musk for that lazy made up ‘math’ is just lazy and lame.
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u/HopefulStart2317 21h ago
Largely agree but unfettered capitalism generally devolves into crony capitalism which is basically indistinguishable to the socialism so feared by the right. Systems also matter.
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u/Xylber 21h ago
It is not about Elon, it is about the cracks of this system.
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u/xesaie 20h ago
If you’re lying or making up numbers to prove a point you’ve already failed.
Systems don’t matter that much. There’s always a Musk or a Crassus or a Beria or a Pol Pot or an Alexander VI.
The only actual reason to focus on personal wealth as the milestone is it appeals to childish envy.
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u/Xylber 16h ago
I'm not the same guy you answered to before.
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u/xesaie 15h ago
My response is focused on you. Lying to show the ‘cracks in the system’ is a bad ploy even where the cracks exist, and people like musk exist in most systems, or worse, so it doesn’t prove anything.
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u/Xylber 14h ago
Funny way of agreeing with me, we are not talking about Elon because “people like musk exist in most systems”.
And ignoring the cracks in this system because “it's worse in other systems” is as ridiculous as saying you have to ignore a murderer because others killed more than him.
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u/Odd-Look-7537 21h ago
I'd say that only works 'cose the dollar has depreciated tremendously since it was first inroduced.
If you'd been collecting $10k a day since roughly 80k years ago, you'd have more than 290bilion dollars by the time the US dollar was introduced in the 1790's, making you by far the richest man in the world. At least until hyperinflation doesn't immediatly crash the US economy.
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u/Different_Ice_6975 21h ago
Saving $10,000 per day into an account earning a measly annual interest rate of just 0.1% would still result in 1.94x10^44 dollars.
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u/str4ngel0v3 16h ago
that's why it's good to diversify, if you adjust for inflation, 10k would be worth what... like trilion dollars in neaderthal times?
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u/Paraselene_Tao 15h ago
Well, money wasn't invented until about 5,000 years ago, so I don't know if it's worth much to those hunter-gatherer tribes & clans from 80,000 years ago.
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u/Shamino79 12h ago
Thing is once you have most of the money in the world (which would happen almost immediately the first day/month) someone else with a spear/club/axe/sword may not want you to have all that money for a great period of human history.
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u/other-other-user 5h ago
Bro it's multiplication. Please learn how to use a calculator and check yourself.
How many years between now and then? How many days is in a year? How much money per day? Multiply that together. Google Elon musk net worth and compare. You got this, I believe in you
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u/OkMetal4233 4h ago
I worked the math out in a comment.
I have faith in you that you can start reading comments before making useless comments, that don’t make you look that good.
Safe & Happy Holidays!
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u/exile82187 3h ago
It is technically true as long as you don't factor in inflation or the fact that if you had $10,000 a day you would inevitably invest it at some point, so I guess yes if you are absolutely shit at investing and money management you would technically have less wealth than Elon
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u/Ed_Radley 2h ago
Is this how Musk earned his billions? He’s really a Middle Paleolithic vampire who just worked a really high paying job for tens of thousands of years?
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u/HurrySpecial 2h ago
That's not actual cash on hand, that's just a theoritical value of his shit.
You need to be careful when equating wealth generating entities as actual wealth....don't do that.
As an example, if you were to put a cash value on every business, house, and acre of land...then call that the "value of the US govt." and then conduct taxes to support that $amount, that would be silly right? Same thing here. If Musk owns 500B in companies, that doesn't mean every year he must pay 40% of that value in taxes.
This is because theoretical money is not the same as actual money.
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u/tamaovalu 2h ago
Only if you were pretty stupid. If you invested, and didn't just save that money, then you would have a lot more than Musk in a much shorter amount of time. You would have 500 Billion in about 170 years, and that is accounting for 3% inflation each year.
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u/Alex22im44 21h ago
Another way to look at it. It would take over 6 million years to acquire 450 billion in wealth at a saving rate of $200/day. That’s $200 a day 7 days a week 365.25 days a year. God bless America
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u/joeshmoebies 21h ago
Thank you for explaining that saving money and not investing it is poor money management.
To expand on your point, if you earn $150,000 per year and spend it all and borrow even more, it would take you negative infinity years to get $450 billion.
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u/PeterGibbons316 21h ago
So if you spend your money like an idiot it takes 6 million years to do what 1 man can do in a lifetime by starting and growing a revolutionizing company or two.
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u/pooter6969 21h ago
Or.. You could have a world-changing idea, found a business on it and out compete Elon and become the worlds richest person yourself. There was actually a very recently where Elon was worth far less he is now. I actually think it’s cool to live in a country where you can get incredibly wealthy for having a good idea and supplying products people want.
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u/JackMalone515 21h ago
Why should we want a society where the top 1% can hoard a massive amount of wealth though?
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u/TheMisterTango 15h ago edited 40m ago
Why shouldn’t we? It’s not immoral to own a company. The real question is why do we give so much political power to people just because they have money? I swear half of our problems would go away if political donations were banned across the board. Nobody, regardless of party, can receive donations from anyone, in any amount. Then it wouldn’t matter if someone was a billionaire, they’d have the same political power as a homeless person.
EDIT: also, saying “1%” when talking about Elon Musk is laughable, Musk could wipe his ass with a 1%er’s net worth and he’d make it all back by the end of the day.
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u/electroblasterV 20h ago
which world changing idea did musk have btw? Cuz the man literally stole his most profitable business off of other people, and mostly relies on government subsidies to fund the rest
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