Key Points:

• Concentration of Wealth: Elon Musk’s fortune is primarily tied to Tesla, making him less liquid despite his massive net worth.
• Comparison to Other Billionaires: Unlike diversified billionaires like Warren Buffett, Musk’s wealth is concentrated in one company.
• Other Holdings: In addition to Tesla, Musk’s significant investments include Twitter and SpaceX.
• As good as Buffett is, so far he’s overlooked “the Next Nvidia.” See what all the excitement is about by clicking here now.

Lee and Doug discuss Elon Musk’s immense wealth, noting that despite being worth around $250 billion, most of his assets are tied up in Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), making him relatively illiquid. They compare Musk to other billionaires, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, pointing out that most super-rich individuals have concentrated their wealth in one major venture. They also highlight Warren Buffett as an exception, having diversified his investments widely through Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B). The conversation touches on how Musk’s wealth is primarily in Tesla and his private holdings in Twitter and SpaceX, emphasizing the paradox of being extremely wealthy yet not easily able to access liquid assets.

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Edited Video Transcript:

So depending on the day of the week, Elon Musk is worth two hundred billion dollars.

Oh, it’s more than that.

The number bounces around based on things like the Tesla stock.

Of that amount of money, it’s really a very modest fraction that’s in Tesla.

So if you look at his holdings, the part of it that’s liquid that he can trade and, you know, turn into cash is Tesla stock.

And if he’s a net seller of Tesla stock in any meaningful way, Tesla stock goes down.

So we have the richest person in the world and he’s illiquid.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

And he is one of the ten richest men ever.

And he has more money than Bezos.

He has more money than Bill Gates.

He has more money than Warren Buffett.

And it’s an amazing story for a guy, you know, that’s only in his early fifties that built, he was one of the early Tesla employees in two thousand eight.

All the money he had that went into there came out of PayPal, which he was one of the original creators of.

And, you know, he was one of the very first people to champion the electric car.

And that was, you know, sixteen, seventeen years ago.

And, you know, built his way up to the top.

But again, for a guy this worth, I think it’s closer to two hundred and fifty billion.

He’s all in Tesla.

His other big holding is when he bought Twitter, but he took Twitter private.

So it’s literally private shares, which I’m sure he could sell over the counter to Goldman Sachs or somebody like that.

Not for much.

Yeah, not much because he’s probably down on it.

But all of his wealth is in Tesla.

All of it.

And that’s incredible when you consider the sheer concentration of that for such a rich guy.

Yeah.

To me, it’s interesting, though.

Most super, super rich people gambled or started one thing.

Yep.

You take guys like Gates, Bezos.

The only person who’s actually built a super broad portfolio is Buffett.

Buffett is the only guy where you could say, okay, he’s one of the richest people in the world, but his risk and portfolio is spread very, very widely.

The rest of the people are founders, and they’re still mostly in one thing.

Yeah, and Buffett’s an interesting case because for most portfolio managers, per se, he’s reasonably concentrated.

But he has, you know, in forty five or so, you know, public stocks in Berkshire Hathaway.

But a huge private portfolio, which, like you said, keeps him super diversified with, you know, Acme Brick and Justin Boots and Dairy Queen and all the other things that he owns, and the private insurance companies and railroads and electricity and Berkshire Hathaway real estate.

So yeah, to have all your eggs in one basket.

But again, like you said, I mean, that’s been the case for some of the biggest players in the world, in the history of the world.

That was the case, you know, with John D. Rockefeller, you know, who owned Standard Oil when he was twenty five or, you know, the guy that had the highest net worth, Andrew Carnegie, and sold U.S. Steel to J.P. Morgan.

I mean, these were titans, but they were pretty concentrated as well.

They were concentrated.

Well, I guess the lesson here is, is that it’s really great to be rich.

But it often means that you’re not liquid.

Yeah, it is.

Well, yeah.

And again, there’s not a bank in the world that’s not going to let him collar some up and take the money out of a collar or whatever.

Anything he wants, he can get because he’s Elon Musk.

And like you had mentioned earlier, when we were talking about it, he owns all of SpaceX.

And that’s a huge business, especially with not just the rocket business, but the satellite business and everything.

I mean, he’s the American Edison of this generation.

He’s one of the most fascinating guys ever.

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