But it was during both of these ventures that the left declared that Musk was wasting his money and he could have been spending it on helping poor people. Why wasn't he feeding the hungry or building shelters? There are starving people in Africa! Why isn't he using his money to help them instead of scratching his billionaire itch to be rich and powerful by buying up social media platforms? 

This is how the left wrestles with capitalism. The argument is that without government and regulation, the rich would just spend their money on pursuits that only benefit themselves. The rich get richer and the poorer get poorer. That's what they like to argue whenever these billionaires do something that does, indeed, make them richer. 

They're half right. Billionaires can do shady things with backdoor deals. They'll maneuver themselves with governments and regulatory agencies in such a way that they'll actually benefit from regulations. They have a hand in crafting them sometimes. For instance, it shouldn't be any wonder that more than a few corporations became even more financially stable and even wealthier during the pandemic. New billionaires were created during that period, in fact. 

However, there are moments of good business and ventures that make these billionaires even wealthier than before, and that's not a bad thing. That's just capitalism. Musk is very good at naked capitalism. He knows how to take a company and strip it down and focus it so it functions in a healthy, cost-effective way, and now he's bringing that to our own government. 

This might mark one of the first times I'm aware of where a corporate CEO interacted with government and actually worked to dismantle it rather than bend it to his will. 

But I digress. The point is that Musk proves capitalism works, and through his use of it, he's created things that have benefited everyone. For instance, X paved the way for free speech to be heard around the world, which then led to the election of Donald Trump, which will then lead to a better economy, which will then lead to more jobs. The poor directly benefited, or rather will benefit, from Musk buying Twitter. 

This is a time-tested formula. Capitalism creates something, that something spins off into something else, and that something else becomes cheaper and cheaper until it can be purchased by the poor, and the poor benefit. Cars, air travel, the internet, smartphones, food preservation, and much, much more are things that began as capitalistic ventures that only the wealthy could afford, and eventually the poor benefited from as well. We went from the Model-T to the Nissan Versa, a highly affordable vehicle that blows the Model-T, a thing wealthy people purchased, away in terms of usability. 

The poor benefited because the rich played around with an idea. 

This brings me to something I saw on the New York Post today, and it gave me pause. According to the Post, there's a new life-extending pill that apparently will make the rich live longer. Naturally, this has caused people to use the argument that the rich shouldn't be spending money on selfish pursuits, and should, instead, use their wealth to help the poor live better: 

Billionaires are funding the creation of life-extending pills that will eventually hit the market for people to buy, according to a CEO — and he says it’ll turn the rich in to “posh, privileged zombies.”

The chilling warning comes amid fears that AI and biotechnology are evolving at such a rapid pace that anti-aging tablets might only be a matter of years away.

[...]

But Cleary said Silicon Valley moguls should “quit playing God” in their race to conquer death, calling the quest for the holy grail of medicine “ego-driven” and charging that it risks creating a planet of “posh, privileged zombies.”

Instead, he said, they should use their huge fortunes to help the world’s poorest children survive at least into adulthood. Rather than prolonging the lives of the rich elite, their money would be better spent on the world’s 5 million children who die of hunger and from other preventable, treatable causes every year.

“Silicon Valley’s dogged pursuit of the fountain of youth is a fear-led, ego-driven folly that comes at a terrible humanitarian cost to the planet and to its most vulnerable inhabitants,” said Cleary, the author of “Elixir,” a novel that explores the damaging consequences of life-extending drugs on society.

I'm not going to dive into whether these fountain of youth tablets are a good or bad thing, at least not in this article. I'm giving that one some hard thought, even as I write this. More research about how it's made and what it entails is required before I can make a solid argument for or against it.

But I do know this: If these tablets are good and only the rich can afford them, it won't be long before the poor can too, because that's how capitalism works. The poor will eventually have access to this kind of life-changing medicine through market normalization and price reduction. As demand increases, so will supply, dropping the price. This will then result in a hardier human species.

And once again, the left will be left looking like idiots because capitalism did the job they claim they do best. 

But one final note. It's good to remember that the left's ultimate goal isn't to help the poor. If it was, they'd see capitalism as a blessing, as it continuously benefits the lives of the poor. 

No, it's main goal is to use the poor as a means to enact regulations and create government programs. I can give you examples of how fewer regulations and government programs harm the poor all day, but when helping the poor isn't the actual goal... well, you get the Democrat Party.