There is the possibility that the wealth of an individual was acquired through voluntary trade. In that case, the person has already done so much good for other people that asking them for philanthropy instead of self-indulgence is renegotiating a deal that has already closed.
In contrast, most governments have acquired massive wealth through taxation of their subjects. Those subjects are less likely to tolerate the burden of taxation without some form of reciprocal obligation by the government, such as the expectation they will feed starving children, or provide for common defense, or ensure the viability of comprehensive health care systems.
The feat of the self-made ultrawealthy individual is magnified by the possibility that they have also paid taxes while accumulating their wealth.
In the case of Musk, he appears to have earned his fortune via normal entrepreneurship and standard business practices. He has contributed to giving us Internet payment services, private orbital launch, electric cars, solar energy production, and a few other things that (presumably) enough people want to make a business of them. The theoretical check on the serial entrepreneur that has achieved escape velocity from the rat race in both figurative and literal senses is starting a new business from old exit money that eventually fails hard.
I don't want Musk to feed starving children on Earth. I want him to feed children on Mars. If he can do that, I will likely throw fistfuls of my money at his face without him having to wave a gun in mine.
But he does seem to be a rather rare breed. Many ultrawealthy people did not accumulate their wealth by fulfilling the wishes of others. If you compare the likes of Musk, Gates, and Buffett with corrupt heads of state (i.e. Vladimir Putin) and monarchs, where the personal wealth is siphoned off from government funds, those are the people who most need some form of theoretical check. Those two classes don't need to be held to the same standard, because there is a vast gulf separating wealth that was earned from wealth that was taken.
Nobody can make billions through work. There are no billion-dollar medical doctors or even lawyers. Billions can only come through passive income, through owning shares of a growing company rather than hard graft.
I consider working in a leadership role, for a company you have a significant share of ownership in, to be active income.
There are billion-dollar founder-managers. There are billion-dollar investor-board members. People like Carl Icahn blur a bit of the line between passive and active income, but changing the direction of a company via votes and proxies is work, too. Even managing a hedge fund involves some work, as it involves calculating alpha, beta, and correlation rather than direct management of one company, but that's applying a lot of information-leverage to a little bit of work, and I consider that to be mostly passive income. The work itself is worth maybe $100k to $500k/year for the financial analysis, and any excess is passively gathered as dividends from the portfolio companies and as fees from the fund's investors.
It isn't a binary "good rich" and "bad rich". There is a continuous spectrum from not a dime that wasn't earned to not a dime that was. The tech company tycoons fall mostly on one end of that, and the Saudi princes fall mostly on the other.
I think that as a gross generalization, those who have had to earn some of their wealth have a greater right to spend what they have as they please, without consideration for societal expectations. There's no noblesse oblige for the person who does not passively benefit from the collection of the taxes.
But if you're a wealthy monarch, or a trust fund baby, you had damned well better think of the children before you try to go to space.
In contrast, most governments have acquired massive wealth through taxation of their subjects. Those subjects are less likely to tolerate the burden of taxation without some form of reciprocal obligation by the government, such as the expectation they will feed starving children, or provide for common defense, or ensure the viability of comprehensive health care systems.
The feat of the self-made ultrawealthy individual is magnified by the possibility that they have also paid taxes while accumulating their wealth.
In the case of Musk, he appears to have earned his fortune via normal entrepreneurship and standard business practices. He has contributed to giving us Internet payment services, private orbital launch, electric cars, solar energy production, and a few other things that (presumably) enough people want to make a business of them. The theoretical check on the serial entrepreneur that has achieved escape velocity from the rat race in both figurative and literal senses is starting a new business from old exit money that eventually fails hard.
I don't want Musk to feed starving children on Earth. I want him to feed children on Mars. If he can do that, I will likely throw fistfuls of my money at his face without him having to wave a gun in mine.
But he does seem to be a rather rare breed. Many ultrawealthy people did not accumulate their wealth by fulfilling the wishes of others. If you compare the likes of Musk, Gates, and Buffett with corrupt heads of state (i.e. Vladimir Putin) and monarchs, where the personal wealth is siphoned off from government funds, those are the people who most need some form of theoretical check. Those two classes don't need to be held to the same standard, because there is a vast gulf separating wealth that was earned from wealth that was taken.