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Why Trillionaires Will Be Good for America

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wednesday

Wealth

Why Trillionaires Will Be Good for America

The problem isn't how rich someone is. It's how they got it.

John Stossel | 10.7.2026 5:40 PM

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(Stossel TV)

How much money should any one person have?

When Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire, people got mad.

"He will own everything!" claims a popular YouTuber. "He will own your house…your country…your government."

Comedian Bill Maher, lately a voice of reason, asked, "Would it be crazy to have a law that said, 'You can't go above 1 percent of gross domestic product?!'"

Actually, yes. My new video explains why it would be crazy.

People who hate the very rich tend to assume that there's a finite amount of wealth. So if Musk has a trillion dollars, everyone else must have less.

"That's simply not true," explains business ethics professor Chris Freiman. In a free market, businesses create new wealth, because consumers give up dollars only "because they got stuff that they valued more in return."

Car buyers voluntarily give Musk money because he created a car they value more than other cars.

Likewise, "Steve Jobs became a billionaire, but the rest of the world........

© Reason.com