The US tech billionaire and richest man in the world, Elon Musk, surprised people with an unusual confession: “Whoever said money couldn’t buy happiness really knew what he was talking about,” Musk wrote on his Internet platform X. He followed it with a sad emoji. What exactly motivated Musk to make this statement and whether he was serious about it is still unclear.
Recommended editorial content
Here you will find external content selected by our editors to enrich the article with additional information for you. Here you can display or hide the external content with one click.
I agree that the external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data can be transmitted to third-party platforms. You can find more information about this in the data protection settings. You can find these at the bottom of our page in the footer, so you can manage or revoke your settings at any time.
A few minutes earlier, he thanked a user with a heart emoji because he complimented Musk on his T-shirt. With an estimated fortune of more than 830 billion dollars (around 700 billion euros), the head of the SpaceX company Tesla is by far the richest person in the world.
The cuts he ordered are causing hunger and disease
On X, more than 80,000 users commented on Musk’s statement. A number of people agreed with him. Others accused him of being tearful and cynical in the face of the misery in the world. Still others advised him to turn to God or donate his money: “If you spread your wealth around the world, there would be eight billion happy people,” wrote one user.
© dpa/Jose Luis Magana
In fact, Musk did the opposite last year. With the Doge program, which he drove, he ordered the US government to cut and cancel various global aid programs, for example to prevent disease in Africa or to combat hunger. A New York Times report a few days ago revealed that these cuts have led to the return of various painful diseases such as parasitic onchocerciasis. Experts estimate that the cuts have resulted in 500,000 to 1,000,000 additional deaths overall.
Musk’s name appeared several times in the Justice Department’s Epstein files, which were newly released on Friday, apparently in emails with Epstein from 2012 to 2014. On Saturday, Musk denied personal wrongdoing on X.
Musk described himself as “potentially bipolar”
In the past, Musk has said in interviews that he has struggled with dark, stressful thoughts since his youth. Reports in The Wall Street Journal suggested that Musk uses ketamine to treat depression. In the biography of Musk written by Walter Isaacson, he also described himself as “potentially bipolar.” (AFP/jmi)
