Elon Musk is a very successful businessman. He is the richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of more than £200bn. His businesses include Tesla, Space X, X (formerly Twitter), Starlink, Neuralink and X.ai, his latest AI project. His achievements are impressive. Tesla opened up the US market for electric vehicles, SpaceX has just sent the world’s most powerful rocket into space, and a man who volunteered to be the first human to be implanted with a Neuralink microchip into his brain can now control a computer using his thoughts. Elon has 187 million followers on his social network.
The board and shareholders of Tesla have just awarded Elon a pay deal of £44bn. This is equivalent to 10% of the value of Tesla, 75% of the total schools’ budget in England and 25% of the NHS budget. It is by far the largest ever pay award to a CEO. Elon’s favourite phrase is “vox populei, vox dei” – “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Jesus spoke about the spiritual danger of great riches. When we have great riches in this world, we may forget we have an eternal soul as well as a body and that life in this world is transient. When we die, we enter eternity and into the presence of the living God. None of us knows when our life will end. Jesus once asked the people a very challenging question, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?” Most of the people listening to him were ordinary people for whom daily life was very hard because they had very little money. It is possible to be materially poor but spiritually rich because we have received God’s gift of eternal life in Jesus.
Jesus said it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. A rich young ruler once came to Jesus humbly asking, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He was a religious man who had tried to keep God’s commandments from childhood. Jesus reminded him that only God is truly good. He then looked at the man with love in his heart for him and said, “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away very sad, because he was very wealthy.