Is It Immoral to Be a Trillionaire?

Elon Musk just shattered the wealth record. After the initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX, Musk has officially become the world’s first trillionaire (sadly, SpaceX stock has taken a tumble and now Musk is only a 900 billionaire). And it’s not just that he’s the richest person in the world. Estimates for who is in second vary slightly, but whoever it is they aren’t even close. The second wealthiest person, at least among the people who are ranked, has less than a third of what Musk does. In fact, even if you look at his inflation-adjusted wealth, he might just about be the richest person ever in the history of America.

As a result, there have been a swarm of people who claim that this is immoral. Not that the way Musk made his wealth is immoral, but the very fact that he has so much wealth is itself evil. Such people argue that for anyone to hoard that much wealth and not share it is wrong. Others claim that there is nothing wrong with one person having so much money. They argue that Musk is worth so much because he’s achieved so much and built so much. For them what’s immoral is being covetous of other people’s wealth.

So one side claims that this incredible wealth is evil, while the other claims he’s done nothing wrong. What does the Bible have to say about wealth? Specifically, is having lots of money and being rich evil? To think rightly about this issue, we’re going to look first at what it means that Musk is a trillionaire, then we’re going to look at what the Bible has to say about wealth, and then we’re going to end with a few concluding thoughts.

Understanding What This Means

Many people misunderstand what it actually means that Elon Musk is a trillionaire. When they hear that someone has become a trillionaire, they naturally assume that means that he has, well, a trillion dollars that he can use to do whatever he wants. That’s not technically correct. Elon Musk doesn’t have a bank account with a trillion dollars in it. Musk owns a lot of stock, and if he were to sell every bit of stock, he could theoretically get a trillion dollars for it.

How did he end up with (just slightly less than) a trillion dollars worth of stock? He got all this stock by building companies and then allowing people to buy stock to raise money for the company while keeping a good portion of that stock for himself. Now, those stocks are worth what they are because investors are willing to pay the current stock price. If investors become less confident, his stock price will go down, as would his wealth. If he does something that makes people nervous, like smoke weed on a podcast, then the stock price could go down and so would Elon’s net worth.

Okay, well maybe that’s just a technicality. Who cares if it’s a trillion dollars in cash or a trillion dollars’ worth of stock? Why doesn’t he just sell the stock and then give it away? It’s not that simple. First, some of Musk’s stock he can’t sell, since that was part of the agreement for the initial public offering of SpaceX. Musk promised not to sell his stock for a year. Why would investors want that? Because of our second point: if Musk started selling stock he would seriously hurt the price of the company’s stock. The reason is that if the founder and majority owner of a company starts selling stock, people get real nervous and assume he thinks the company is tanking. That means they start selling, and the price of the stock crashes. Finally, if Musk wants to maintain control of his companies, he needs to have a healthy chunk of stock. If he sold all of his stock, he would be at the mercy of whoever bought it.

Now, people question whether Elon Musk’s companies are really worth what people think they are. Musk does have a habit of overhyping his companies and giving unrealistic timelines and promises. We were supposed to be well into the era of self-driving cars by now, and that has not been going as fast as was promised. Regardless, for Musk to be worth (almost) a trillion dollars, there must be investors who believe his companies (primarily Tesla and SpaceX) are worth a lot of money.

Yet at the end of the day Musk is still incredibly wealthy. He might not have a trillion dollars sitting in his bank account, but I guarantee he has more money there than I do. So is it wrong that he has the money that he has, or for that matter is it wrong that any billionaire or millionaire has what they have?

What the Bible Says about Wealth

A few years ago I taught a course through the minor prophets. As we studied these books, the issue of the wealthy’s abuse of the poor came up several times. After one of the lessons, a sincere Christian asked me how what we had talked about was any different from standard leftist talking points. I thought about it for a moment and then replied that the difference is that many today hate wealth itself, whereas the Bible is opposed to the abuse of wealth.

The Bible never says that wealth itself is evil. In fact, the Bible teaches that wealth is a gift from God (Ecclesiastes 5:19; 1 Chronicles 29:12; Deuteronomy 8:18). Tesla and SpaceX almost went under. Musk himself didn’t give SpaceX in particular much of a chance at succeeding. So why did those companies ultimately succeed? We could give human reasons and talk about a strong work ethic or market factors finally aligning, but ultimately the answer is God. God decided that Musk would succeed, and that as a result would be worth a lot of money.

Yet at the same time, the Bible clearly warns us about the dangers of wealth. The Bible doesn’t treat wealth as morally neutral. While the Bible doesn’t treat wealth itself as a moral evil, it’s probably safe to say that the Bible does see wealth as a moral hazard. In other words, being wealthy isn’t a sin, but being wealthy will make it a lot easier to sin. Being wealthy means it’s easier to trust yourself, that’s why Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24). Paul told Timothy to avoid the desire to be wealthy (1 Timothy 6:9), to warn the wealthy themselves because they were going to face many temptations (1 Timothy 6:17). The wealthy do at times actively take advantage of the poor, and this will bring the judgment of God upon them (James 5:1-5). This is why Agur says that he would rather not be poor and not be rich (Proverbs 30:8).

Is Being Wealthy Wrong?

In the end, no, being a trillionaire isn’t inherently wrong. Greed is wrong, but not wealth itself. If Elon Musk chooses to hoard his wealth instead of being generous, that would be greed and it would be a sin. But if other people covet his money then that is greed, and their covetousness is also wrong. Yet while being a trillionaire isn’t inherently wrong, it opens Elon Musk up to a host of temptations that will make accepting Christ and living for God all that much harder. God gave Musk (almost) a trillion dollars, at least in stocks. Good for Musk. If we see God richly bless someone else and become green with envy, that says something about us.