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Elon, S.B.F. & The Closing of the Billionaire Mind

Remember a time when our Wall Street heroes were good at business?

businessman
Our inclination to mythologize the lives of billionaires like Elon Musk, or Sam Bankman-Fried, has perhaps blinded us to a more fundamental truth. Photo: Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
December 7, 2022

We do love our rich folks in America, that’s for sure. Back in the day, it was men like J.P. Morgan and Henry Villard, the money men who backed Thomas Edison, and John D. Rockefeller, who for a time controlled the oil patch and was our first billionaire. More recently, our infatuation has landed on such businessmen as Jack Welch and Larry Page and Sergey Brin. We can also throw into the mix the Microsoft coaching tree, including Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, the late Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer.