> That's just now how it works. Most of the new tech billionaires got rich entirely on the value of companies they created or invested in.
That value doesn't come from thin air.
> Tesla has been pushing the old automotive industry that's built around internal combustion into the EV era
Telsa routinely overpromises and underdeliveres. It sells best where governments use tax money to pay for it. As a company is insanely overvalued. And while it made some actual progress, which is hard to avoid with billions flowing around it had created nowhere close to the value Elon Musk is free to command. A lot of that money came from taxes, a lot from pockets of people (both customers and investors) that could use it way better but were duped by wonderful fairy tale. And Tesla working culture has plenty of worker exploitation vibes.
And Tesla is just the best case scenario. Other stuff is way more obviously costly to the social and ecological environment.
Let's take SpaceX. It's just a venture based on occupying different point on price/quality curve. His rockets are so cheap that they blow up routinely for reasons that are no mystery for people that were involved in rocketry on govenrment dime. And btw his rockets are still paid for mostly by tax money.
> allowing companies to provide more connectivity and other satellite services to more people
Have you heard about Starlink? It allows ordinary people to sponsor acceleration of progression of Kessler syndrome, through the use of crappy saltelite internet that will only get worse as more people use it. Not to mention screwing up scientific community of people who chose to look into the sky.
None of what billionaires do are absolute wins. They are just absolute wins for them. They do some good by disseminating some useful technology and finding ways to automate making stuff making it cheaper. But that's just some of them and that's just part of what some of them do. What all of them do is democratize doing damage to our planet and to society. Thanks to billionaires, you too can exploit workers, you too can benefit from child labor, you too can generate irreverisible environmental damage, you too can accelerate the end of sattelite era.