Now that we've considered Bill Gates, let's look at Elon Musk, the man who the left seem to hate because he supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election and is working with Donald Trump through the newly created position called the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE. This position, which is a temporary one, is meant to do a deep dive into government agency efficiency and spending to streamline these agencies and to get rid of the ineffective personnel, fraud, waste, and abuse that is rampant in all government agencies. The left dislikes this because their states and constituents often benefit from this, as do many RINOs. Thus, there is a ton of push back on Musk. However, Americans don't seem to care. They are sick and tired of the waste and want the savings offered by a deep dive into government agency spending. Moreover, they are tired of government workers taking advantage of their positions and abusing their power against American citizens. They are ready, quite frankly, for some payback. You won't see much sympathy from many Americans. So, let's compare Elon with Gates and see just how the two compare.

Elon Reeve Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971.  His father Errol worked as an electromechanical engineer, but also owned an emerald mine. His mother, a Canadian citizen, Maye was a model and dietician. He has two siblings a brother, Kimbal, and a sister, Tosca. Like Gates, Elon was bullied in school.  He not only had difficulties with his schoolmates, but also with his father. There was a time when Elon was sent to a wilderness school for boys which he described as a "Lord of the Flies" type paramilitary experience where bullying was a virtue.   He was beaten and thrown down concrete steps and was hospitalized. His father berated him for the experience because Elon had called the boy who beat him stupid. The boy, he said, had just lost his father to suicide. It seems Elon did not always show empathy toward other people. This characteristic, perhaps, may be an issue in his personal relationships even today. He has been married three times (twice to the same woman) and has eleven children by three different women.

Elon has also been known as a veracious reader. He has been quoted as saying Elon would read as few as two books a day, reading science fiction novels for 10 hours a day (https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/why-elon-musk-used-to-read-10-hours-a-day-and-how-you-can-do-less-still-gain-success.html), but he was a mediocre student. Also like Gates, he showed an early affinity for computers, computer programming, and video gaming. Having mastered BASIC programming by age 12, Elon sold a video game called Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for $500.00. After finishing high school, Musk moved to Canada to avoid the mandatory military service required in South Africa. Because of his mother's Canadian citizenship, he was able to obtain a Canadian passport. It's important to note here that the Musk family was openly and staunchly anti-apartheid. Elon's father, Errol, ran for office at one point under an anti-apartheid party. This is one of the reasons for Elon's departure. Participation in the military would require him to participate in the apartheid regime, which was clearly in opposition to his and his family's belief system. He was unwilling to do that.

Elon stayed in Canada for about 2 years, working in various jobs and attending college at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He transferred to the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, where he graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from the Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Physics, making him different from Bill Gates. He wasn't all business during these years, though. He was known to host large house parties where he sold tickets to help pay his tuition. 

In 1994, Elon served in two internships in Silicon Valley. One was with Pinnacle Research Institute, an energy storage startup which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and the other at Rocket Science Games in Palo Alto. That same year Stanford's graduate school invited him to enroll in their material science program, but he declined to enroll. Rather, he applied for a position with Netscape, excited to join in the Internet boom, however Netscape never responded. Since this time, however, he has founded numerous businesses. We will review these here.

1. About the same time, his brother Kimbal, Elon, and Greg Kouri founded a company called Zip2 with money loaned by Errol Musk. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper industry with maps, directions, and yellow pages. The website was sold to Compaq in 1999 for $307 million in cash. Elon received $22 million for his 7% share.  

2. He then founded the company X.com, which was the first federally insured online bank. In the first few months of operation over 200,000 customers joined the service. Because Musk was deemed inexperienced, the  investors replaced him as CEO with Intuit's CEO Bill Harris by the end of the first year. The following year X.com merged with Confinity to avoid competition. Confinity, founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, had a money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's. When the company's merged, Elon returned as CEO. Theil resigned after disputes arised over the use of Microsoft versus Unix as the services operating system. Due to the ensuing technical issues and the lack of a cohesive business model, Musk was ousted as CEO and Thiel returned in 2000 and the company was officially named PayPal. In 2002, the company purchased eBay for $1.5 billion dollars in stock, of which Musk was the largest shareholder with 11.72%, receiving $175.8 million. In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount stating it had sentimental value, now using it for the replacement for Twitter which he purchased in 2022 for $44 billion dollars.

3. SpaceX: Musk's fascination with science fiction extends to the current day. His interests have been reflected in his investments and activities of the nonprofit Mars Society and the creation of his company SpaceX. In 2001, he began to discuss his desire to fund a growth-chamber for plants on Mars. To do so he needed a way to launch the greenhouse payloads into space, so he traveled to Russia to negotiate the purchase of ICBMs from the Russian company NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras. Not happy with the outcome, Musk decided to build the rockets himself. With $100 million of his own money, he founded SpaceX and became the company's first CEO and Chief Engineer. The company attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. Although the rocket failed to reach the Earth's orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA. Two more failed attempts almost led Musk to bankruptcy, until 2008 when Falcon 1 finally reached orbit. In late 2008, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion contract from NASA for Falcon 9-launched Dragon spacecraft flights to the International Space Station, replacing the Space Shuttle. It was a huge win for Musk. In 2012 the Dragon vehicle docked at the ISS, a first for a commercial spacecraft making history. In 2020 SpaceX would make history again with the first manned flight, the Demo-2, to dock at the ISS. It was the first privately owned company to do this. This incredible accomplishment would win SpaceX a whopping $843 million contract to deorbit the ISS at the end of its lifespan from NASA.

4. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX which provides satellite Internet service access. SpaceX began to develop this low Earth obit satellite constellation service about 2015. The first launch of the prototype was in 2018 with the first large constellation deployed in May 2019. The total cost of the decade long project from research, design, build, and deploy is estimate to be about $10 billion. Musk has provided free Starlink services to Ukraine during the war at an annual cost of approximately $400 million. He has also provided free services during the natural disasters in hurricane ravaged Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina for a year following Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

5. Of course, Musk is most well known for his company Tesla founded incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning prior to Musk becoming an investor. Musk invested $6.35 million in February 2004 making him the majority shareholder and he would become the chairman of the board of directors. Musk immediately became active in the company. He was actively involved in the design of the Roadster, but not heavily involved in the day-to-day business operations of the company. Following some mishandling of finances and escalating conflict, Eberhard was ousted and Musk assumed leadership as CEO in 2008. Since his active involvement began, Tesla has launched several commercially successful vehicles--the Model S (2012), the crossover Model X (2015), the Model 3 (2017), the crossover Model Y (2020), and the Cybertruck (2020). The company has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, called Gigafactories; and, it entered the S&P 500 in late 2020. In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion, the sixth company in the US history to do so.

6. SolarCity/Tesla Energy: Elon provided the concept and the financial capital for SolarCity, which is cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. The company provides solar power systems and was the second largest by 2013. The company has the largest production facility in the country located in Buffalo, New York, built in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until 2020 when Tesla bought it for $2 billion and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. This was done because SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. Multiple lawsuits were filed against Musk and Tesla's board of directors by shareholders. At the time of the merger Tesla stock lost 10% and the shareholders claimed that the merger only benefitted Musk. By January 2020, the board had settled their claims with the shareholders leaving Musk as the only remaining defendant. Two years later, the court ruled in favor of Musk.

7. Neuralink is a neurotechnology company that aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence. Neurolink creates devices for brain implantation to enhance memory or to allow the device to communicate with technology (software) to treat neurological conditions like spinal cord injuries. Neurolink has conducted animal testing which has led to controversy. Some testing has led to the deaths of monkeys and have led to claims of animal cruelty and violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Some scientists and employees have complains about pressure from Musk to accelerate development which they claim has led to botched experiments. This led to an investigation in 2022. This is where Elon Musk and I diverge. I have zero trust in this sort of thing. If all men were good, honest, and trustworthy, this sort of thing might be okay; but, as we know, we live in a fallen world and all of us are not good, honest, and trustworthy. There are evil people in the world who do not now or in the future have the best interest of all in their mind and heart. I think we can do without all of this. 

8. The Boring Company: The company isn't what it sounds like. It's not an entertainment company meant to wake you up. It isn't something dull. It is a company that drills tunnels. It was founded in 2017 when Musk revealed plans to construct tunnels and for specialized, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel underground up to 150 miles per hour and circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Since this time, two tunnel projects in Chicago and West Los Angeles have been canceled, but a tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021 and expansions have been approved.

9. OpenAI/xAI: Ever the technology geek, Elon Musk is always looking to get into the next big thing. This is part of his fascination with science fiction, I think. Its not surprising that he would want to be a part of the artificial intelligence boom. In December 2015, he founded OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence research company which intends to be safe and beneficial to humanity. Musk is concerned about the negative aspects of artificial intelligence, a sentiment he shares with Bill Gates. He left the board of OpenAI in 2018, after the company had made significant advances in machine learning. In July 2023, he founded xAI. This company ains to develop a generative AI program that competes with existing AI like OpenAI and ChatGPT. He got funding for the company from investors in SpaceX and Tesla. He hired engineers from Google and OpenAI.

There are some interesting things to note about Musk outside of his immense wealth. Yes, he is the wealthiest man in the world with a net worth of $436 billion. There are so many people who would judge him for this, but I am going to give you my 2 cents. We have absolutely no right to judge him, Gates, or anyone else for their wealth. There seems to be this far reaching mentality that once someone reaches a certain job position or a salary that suddenly they stop working. Suddenly, everything that they have ever done in their life is meaningless and worthless. Every tireless hour, every sacrifice that they have made, everything that they have done working their way up the ladder to get to that position is now irrelevant because that new position and that new salary has made it so. That is despicable, and it would not be so if it were YOU. It's only so because it is THEM. That is called jealousy and envy and it is wrong. When you have worked that hard and that long to get to the executive level, you have earned that salary, but believe me, there's much that comes with it. There is much responsibility; responsibility most of us would not want to have on our backs. Until you have walked a mile in their shoes from the time they were working a mailroom until they were sitting in the boardroom, then do not judge them. You have no right. Finally, Musk has never filed for bankruptcy nor have any of his businesses. Gates, on the other hand, has filed for bankruptcy and so have several of his businesses.

Until 2022, Elon described himself as politically moderate; however, critics, as we know, have described him as far-right. He has declared himself as "a free speech absolutist." ("Former Twitter Insider Describes Elon Musk's Mixed Signals on Free Speech". Frontline. Retrieved February 4, 2025). When it comes to voting, Elon has voted Democrat more often, having voted for Obama, Clinton, and Biden. In 2022, he signaled a change when he announced that he would start voting for Republican Party candidates.

When comparing some individual issues between Gates and Musk, they both support climate change initiatives. Musk supports a tax on carbon emissions. Gates does not. Instead, he prefers offsets. "In theory, carbon offsets help balance your carbon footprint by funding environmental projects that reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. One carbon offset credit supposedly equals one metric ton of carbon dioxide, or a comparable amount of other greenhouse gases, removed from the air." (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/why-bill-gates-and-jeff-bezos-buy-carbon-offsets-how-they-work.html)

Interestingly, Musk supports a universal basic income, but Gates does not. “People can do the math on UBI and figure out what the costs would be,” he said. “I think we still need to focus [on] benefits on those in need - those who can't work or who need retraining. Admittedly this means [identifying] those people rather than just writing checks to everyone and government does this imperfectly.” (https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/bill-gates-on-ubi-government-shouldnt-just-write-checks-to-everyone) 

Both Gates and Musk have deep concerns about Artificial Intelligence. First and foremost is the concern for abuse by those with ill-will. Both Gates and Musk recognize the harm that may come from unregulated AI. Musk's intimate relationship with OpenAI and xAI has given him more knowledge about the specifics of what is required to keep AI safe from abuse. He points out the following: Regulation and Oversight; Establishing ethical guidelines; Establishing safety standards; Licensing and Certification; Collaborate Efforts and Industry Standards; and Public Awareness and Engagement. (https://press.farm/elon-musks-ai-concerns-risks-and-challenges/) More generally, Gates has pointed to 3 risks related to AI--cybercrime, a fast-rate of change which may lead to job losses, "loss of control". The third risk is really just an extension of the first; it relates to misinformation and scams. Bill Gates, on the contrary, compares moderating AI to moderating free speech. He does not believe that all speech should be protected as the Constitution provides. “'We should have free speech, but if you’re inciting violence [which is not protected author inserted], if you’re causing people not to take vaccines, where are those boundaries that even the U.S. should have rules? And then if you have rules, what is it?' Gates asked on CNBC’s 'Make It.'" (https://tdefender.substack.com/p/bill-gates-defends-free-speech-inciting-violence-vaccines-pharma) 

Both Bill Gates and Elon Musk are anti-labor union. Musk was accused in 2019 of threatening Tesla employees of attempting to unionize. He believes that labor unions, like the UAW, wield too much power. He alleged that Tesla was unfairly left out of an EV summit because Tesla is not unionized and it was because of pressure from the UAW on the Biden Administration to keep Tesla out. (https://marketrealist.com/p/what-did-elon-musk-say-about-unions/). Gates has been active in his fight against teacher's unions believing that they hurt school and students. He has been an advocate for school vouchers and alternative educational options to support student achievement.

Bill Gates supports DOGE. In an article in Forbes in January 2025, Gates said he supports DOGE and that they will have to tackle pensions, defense, and healthcare to cut debt. Musk says he believes he can cut $1 trillion in debt. Other business leaders who support DOGE efforts include Marc Andreessen, Bill Ackman, and Travis Kalanick.

Next, I wanted to compare organizations that the two might belong to, whether similar or different.  Other than being on the board of the Musk Foundation and being involved in some other charitable work, I could not find any other specific organizations for Elon Musk. Bill Gates also has a his charitable organizations like the Gates Foundations, but he is also involved with the Bilderberg Group and has been alleged to be a Freemason and a member of Bohemian Grove, all of which are considered secret societies.

Both men have received numerous honors and awards:

Gates		Musk
Year	Award	Year	Award
1992	National Medal of Technology and Innovation	2007	Inc.com Entrepreneur of the Year
2005	Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire	2007	American Inst. Of Aeronautic & Astronautics George Low Award
2005	Time Person of the Year	2008	National Wildlife Federation Conservation Award
2006	Global Humanitarian	2008/2009	National Space Society’s Von Braun Trophy
2010	Bower Award of Leadership	2010	Gold Space Medal by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
2013	Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service	2018	Royal Society Fellow
2016	Presidential Medal of Freedom	2020	Axel Springer Award
2019	Professor Hawking Fellowship at Cambridge	2021	Time Magazine Person of the Year
2022	Lifetime of Innovation Award	2022	National Academy of Engineering
2023	KISS Humanitarian Award	2022	Order of Defense Merit by the Brazilian government

So this deep dive of Bill Gates and Elon Musk is complete. I think both stand on similar ground. They have equally good points and equally concerning points in their standing. I am concerned about Bill Gate's need to control our healthcare and food, especially owning so much farmland, distribution, and processing of our food production. I am further concerned by his obsession with vaccines and what I believe inappropriate knowledge of virology for a lay person. His unfettered access to government medical data and research, as well as pharmaceutical research, is quite disturbing. The average American would never have this access. He has this access only because of who he is and the power he has by virtue of his pocketbook. He has no scientific training nor is he a doctor of medicine, and he has become overly consumed by a one-sided opinion of medicine. Moreover, I am concerned by his belief that speech should be monitored, specifically with that speech disagrees with his opinions. This is unAmerican and unconstitutional. Science is not fact. Science changes as new information is obtained. Science is based up hypotheses. It is tested and retested. When new data is obtained, new hypotheses are created and new tests are run. If all science were fact, then the planet of Pluto could never be reconsidered as a star and then returned to being a planet. 

Elon presents concerns as well. Since his purchase of Twitter, now "X", free speech has not been completely free on the site. There are censors and fact checkers which monitor posts. To say otherwise is not true. My primary concern lies with Neurolink. I am completely opposed to this company and to what it does. I can see no way in which to construct controls in which anyone could be completely safe from any and all potential threats of harm from brain implants. Until that can be assured, I would never allow any kind of implant into the brain of anyone I know or love. Can you imagine a hacker hacking your deaf child's brain implant and infecting your child with a computer virus? No!!! They can say what they want. It would always be a possibility that they could not 100% assure you it would not happen. I would need 100%.  I have similar reservations with AI, but not to the same degree and, of course, both Gates and Musk are involved with AI; Musk is more directly involved with AI than Gates is. Like both of them, I have reservations about the speed at which AI learns and what happens if AI learns too fast and if that should go beyond our control. AI is something I have difficult wrapping my brain around; and therefore, it can cause alarm.

I hope that these posts have been enlightening and, perhaps, eye opening for you. Maybe it has relieved some fears for you. For me, it allowed me to see them both more on a level playing ground; they had more in common that I expected. I also hope that, if you are someone who is critical of the ultra wealthy, you will reconsider your objection. I will leave you with this:

"Command those who are rich in this present world to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life." 1 Timothy 17-19 NIV

God is instructing us to look at the fruits of the wealth he has bestowed upon the rich. Are they keeping it all to themselves? Or, are they giving generously to those around them? With these two men, after all the research I have done in the past week, I can say that they do. Both give generously to their foundations and to other organizations to help better our world. In Luke 6:31, Jesus says, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Jesus does not qualify this command by condition such as...except when they are mean to you, or except if they are Republicans or Democrats, or except if they are rich. No, we are to treat everyone with same kindness and respect that we would like to be treated with. Jesus emphasizes this in Matthew 22:39 when he tells us to "love our neighbor as yourself". We wouldn't love ourselves any less if we were our income was different, would we? Of course not. We should be supportive and encouraging when people become successful. One's success does not mean that someone else must become less successful. It isn't a tit or tat situation. I've never understood that mentality. Just like I've never understood why people get upset when a company announces high profits. Do you want them to announce no profits? That would mean that they'll probably be closing and lots of people would lose their jobs. That would be terrible. High profits usually mean stockholder's get dividends, pay raises, an increase in research and development of new products or improvements in current products, expansion of stores (if retail) or the purchase of competitors. And, they keep some cash on hand for a rainy day; profit is good. You cannot assume that because a company makes huge profits that the worker isn't going to see a benefit from that profit and that all that profit is going to the executives. Some of it may go to the executives as bonus, but not all of it will. 

Again, I hope that this has been helpful. God bless,