“Yeah, this is fundamental,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said Friday, reaffirming his warning that people who have a “zero-sum mindset” are determined to take things away from other people, because they believe that’s the only way to get ahead.
Musk posted the one sentence response on his X.com social media platform in reaction to a video clip of comments he made during an interview in 2021.
In the interview, Musk disputed the liberal concept that the size of the economy (or wealth) never grows, but is eternally fixed, making life a zero-sum game.
Using the analogy of an “economic pie,” Musk explained that adopting a zero-sum mindset leads to morally questionable behavior, because it presumes that the only way one person can get a bigger slice of pie is to take some pie from another person.
“This is false,” Musk said. “There's a lot of pie,” Musk added, calling on people to work to expand the size of the pie, so everyone can have more:
"When we see people, including some very smart people, taking an attitude of doing things that seem morally questionable, it's often because they have, at a base axiomatic level, a zero-sum mindset.
“If you have a zero-sum mindset, then the only way to get ahead is by taking things from others. If the pie is fixed, then the only way to have more pie is to take someone else's pie.
“But this is false. Obviously, the pie has grown dramatically over time, the economic pie. So, in reality, there's a lot of pie.
“The pie is not fixed. So, it's much better to work on adding to the economic pie, creating more than you consume."
Yeah, this is fundamental https://t.co/8keQV3gt7p
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 30, 2024