Only having 0,1% from anything seems not much – except when it's still $850 million.
There are statements that sound so much like they come from a parallel universe that you have to read them twice. One of them comes from Elon Musk, who explained that he has “less than 0.1%” of his net worth in cash – which only sounds dramatic until you realize that this still amounts to around 850 million dollars.
A statement hovering somewhere between self-deprecation, financial clarification, and unintentional satire, and one that the internet immediately turned into a meme.
Musk: "I Hardly Have Any Cash"
Musk, who lately was called out for mails allegedly exerted from the Epstein Files that seemed like he begged to be invited to parties on Epstein Island, made the remark in response to speculation about his ever-growing fortune. He emphasized that most of his wealth is tied up in company shares, especially in Tesla and SpaceX – in stocks and options, not in freely available money.
That is basically correct: billion-dollar fortunes are rarely piles of money sitting in a bank account or a vault à la Scrooge McDuck, but rather a very large, very volatile construct of holdings. Still, the effect remains curious. Because when ordinary people say, "I don’t have much cash right now," they might mean 50 bucks in their wallet. Musk means 850 million dollars.
The Relativism of Wealth
The key to it all is perspective. In the world of the super-rich, liquidity is a secondary concern – the real value lies in ownership. Musk himself explained that his wealth is "almost entirely" tied to his company stakes.
That’s true: if your billions are held in stocks, you can’t just withdraw money at any time without triggering market movements or selling shares. Technically speaking, he really isn’t "cash-rich" in the traditional sense.
And yet it creates a slightly surreal image: a man who, on paper, is among the richest people in the world while simultaneously emphasizing that his “pocket money” is under one per mille of his fortune.
The Irony Remains
And still, that number lingers: 850 million dollars. As "less than 0.1%."
That’s the point where reality tilts. Because no matter how much you frame it in business terms – for almost anyone in the world, it sounds absurd when someone uses a nine-figure sum to explain that they don’t really have that much money lying around.
Accordingly, the internet reacts by posting memes: an AI-generated Musk drying his tear-streaked face with banknotes; people claiming they barely have any food in the fridge, only to add a photo montage showing a refrigerator whose interior looks like a small supermarket; or requests for a donation link to support the "poor man."
In the end, all of this once again comes across as yet another confirmation that Musk may have lost any real connection to reality and genuinely believes that statements like these can generate sympathy for him – and that this desperate attempt to gain serious respect from society despite living in an ivory tower may well be the only truly honest, human thing he has left.