Why is there only one Elon Musk?

I never said that. I recommend that you argue against my positions, not yours.

> This is a ridiculous argument ...

Yes, it is -- and it is your argument, not mine.

Your argument goes downhill from there, relying on the much-revered but meaningless "who cares?" meme.

> ... it's absurd to assert that they're not worth having just because they're not preserved for all eternity.

Yes -- good thing that I didn't make that argument, only you did.

My advice is to try to stick to the content of the other person's post, rather than make something up to conveniently argue against.

It can be true that business types and engineers are over-represented among billionaires.

It also depends on how you define "engineer." Nobody makes billions as a line engineer (but nobody makes billions as a line "manager" either). But in my experience once you get a degree in engineering, that totally shapes your world view and how you approach problems even if you go on and do other things. So I think those people should count too.

Using a relatively narrow definition, out of the Forbes 25 you might count Charles and David Koch (BS/MS in ChemE/MechE), Jeff Bezos (BS EECS), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (BS CS), and Mukesh Ambani (BS ChemE). These guys all made their fortune at companies related to their engineering discipline. Broadening the definition, you can also throw in there Larry Ellison (no degree, but worked at Amdahl and Ampex as a programmer on databases), and Bill Gates. Finally, you could throw in Michael Bloomberg (BS EE--went straight into finance) and Bernard Arnault (BS CivE, worked as a civil engineer but made his fortune elsewhere).

That's disproportionate, considering that only 1-3% of the population is engineers.

#1 To edw519 on Elon's failed marriage, I'm reminded of that economist joke about "is that expensive or is it valuable?" For me, my family is priceless I cherish them with all my heart, but for others I know their work drives them. I don't begrudge them for having different reward structures in their brain, and I would never go so far as to suggest that one set of choices is "better" than another. I share the opinion that making a vow of marriage is a pretty huge promise, but that is because in my context it was a huge promise that I made. As opposed to folks I've known who got married but made a different sort of promise. I attended a wedding where the vows were not "until death do us part" but were "for as long as we both shall love." To which I said, "Seriously? Until you decide you are tired of it?" But my point is that we don't know what promise Elon made when he married.

#2 on the "where are they" question, the author (jnp) doesn't take into account that first you have to be a billionaire and then you have to care about "sci-fi stuff". When I sample the general population I find that people who care about science fiction type technologies and making them real is a small fraction of the general population, so I am not surprised that only a small fraction of the billionaires have similar ideas about interesting questions. What I find even more amazing is that none of them have apparently taken any of the 'unconventional' fusion projects under their wing (which is almost thematically Tony Stark).

The last bit I'll add is a bit I've added before which is that I have observed that "rich you" is a different person than "not-rich you" for most technologists I've met. (sample size isn't large but I think over the years I've known/observed on the order of 200 people who have gone from "not rich"[1] to "rich"[2] and in most of the cases there was a pretty big shift in what they valued and who they were. Because of that one has to add that someone who is interested in sci-fi stuff now, needs to still be interested in it post-change. And as others have pointed out, Elon has put everything on the line to advance sci-fi stuff a number of times, and that willingness to risk being "not rich" again is perhaps the rarest trait of all.

[1] Defining "not rich" as having debts that they would have to forfeit if they lost employment and future obligations that are not yet funded.

[2] Defining "rich" as having no debts for which forfeiting them would change their lifestyle, and having a source of income from passive investing that is sufficient under both optimistic and pessimistic economic scenarios.

A non-negligible amount of wealth is inherited. Again, not to say that inherited wealthy aren't going to be making innovative companies - Tony Stark himself inherited Stark Industries. But I think the Elon Musk assumption is for serial ambition in entrepreneurship, which probably more likely comes from self-made people.

A lot of wealthy (and innovative) people like doing things behind the scenes. Like Tony Stark, but without the fireworks and cheerleaders.

Finally, as others have said, there are other people who have made multiple innovations on the scale of Musk - Edison, Tesla, Ford, Howard Hughes in the past, more recently Gates and Allen, Steve Jobs, Larry and Sergey. Maybe Zuckerberg and Dorsey are the next to join these ranks. And that is just in the computer and internet industries.

I think it's worth noting that many of the areas are saddled with burdensome regulation, with the caveat that this is certainly not the only or even the primary hindrance, and that the fact they may be hindrances doesn't in itself mean they aren't warranted.