this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
204 points (95.5% liked)
Technology
85736 readers
4652 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Go try and get an interest free loan from the bank.
Go "earn" a billion dollars in stock and try again.
I guarantee you'll have real money the second time. Sure they don't sit on cash but billionaires absolutely tap into that stock as equity and use it like cash. Many vehicles for doing so are well documented
Yes I am aware of how they extract money from their stock holdings as propublica showed us.
My point, Elon couldn't recognize a trillion dollars. He probably couldn't realize a hundred billion in actual cash. The more he realizes, the more his holdings decline in value. And he downturn is coming, although he will get bailed out I'm sure.
My point is you're arguing irrelevant semantics. They're out buying $500 million dollar superyachts. That's close enough to enough of their net worth being real money to make the distinction irrelevant.
500 million is a fraction of their stated wealth, it's not semantics to recognize that they are one downturn away from seeing their wealth evaporate, and possible margin calls against that money they did realize tax free by borrowing against their stock.
Sure, the yacht is only 500 million, that also doesn't include the 75 meter support yacht he often has sailing with it. Now add in his 4 private jets (roughly $250 million total), his three mansions on an almost private island off of Miami (roughly $240 million total), his roughly $40 million into his Washington DC house, his 30,000 acre ranch, his properties in Beverly Hills and Manhattan, and more I'm probably forgetting about (I know he owns more ranch land than just that 30k acre property, it's just the most well known since it now hosts his space company). Not even counting clothes (which Bezos is known to have a pricey watch collection despite wearing a "reserved" choice usually), food, and other expenses which definitely add up. That's a solid billion right there in real things he's bought.
Sure they can't tap the full "value" of their net worth, but the more they have, the more they can tap. And it's a disgusting amount. And they absolutely treat it as cash equivalent.