Joe Bennett: Most of us would like to be rich but aren’t

Space is all the rage with billionaires these days including Elon Musk who wants to populate Mars. Photo / AP

OPINION

Now that Elon Musk has bought Twitter is it time to point out that his name is an anagram of Lone Skum? No, I don’t think so, either, but it is tempting. Because he’s rich.

Most of us would like to be rich but aren’t, so we tend to resent those that are. It helps if they behave in a resentable manner and in this regard Musk is a gift. He seems like the sort of cocky know-all it’s a pleasure to dislike, and he also wants to populate Mars. The implication is that this world isn’t enough for him. He wants more. His empire must always expand because the point of power is getting more of it. That’s easy to dislike.

Space is all the rage with billionaires these days. Toothy Richard Branson has a space-craft company as does gleaming Jeff Bezos the owner of Amazon. One only hopes they don’t crash into each other up there.

The same urge makes the rich buy yachts and islands. An island is a miniature Mars, a place where no one can tell you what to do, where you can rule alone. And the sort of hundred-metre yacht that billionaires go in for is just an island you can move about the place.

Nevertheless, billionaires always seem to want more. The world pays them enormous attention. Their teenage dreams are gratified. But still they seem dissatisfied. What are they missing? Do they just want to be loved? Consider the incomparable Larkin:

In everyone there sleeps

A sense of life lived according to love.

To some it means the difference they could make

By loving others, but across most it sweeps

As all they might have done had they been loved.

That nothing cures.

Love must be tricky for the very rich. How can they know they are loved for themselves? How do they know their lovers aren’t lying? Their wealth gets in the way of trust. One could almost feel sorry for them.

Bill Gates has always seemed the least likely billionaire, a computer wonk who stumbled into wealth. That hasn’t saved him, however, from being resented. He is the subject of countless conspiracy theories about the New World Order. Millions see him as evil. Yet he is the greatest charitable giver in the history of our species. He has funded countless causes, from Aids research to children’s health, and even more significantly he has persuaded many of his fellow billionaires to follow his example and pledge to give away most of their wealth.

One such was the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, who died of cancer a few years ago - a reminder that health can’t yet be bought and immortality never will be. Among the gewgaws that Allen acquired with his billions while still alive was a gallery of paintings by all the big names, from Botticelli to Picasso. The collection recently sold at auction for $1.6 billion, with all the proceeds going to charity.

I don’t know whether Bill Gates has got to Jeff Bezos but he too has recently announced that he plans to give away his loot. But the poor chap is finding it hard. The problem is the usual one with money: whom can he trust? Money turns people’s heads. People lie to get it. Having got it they’re keen to keep it. If he gives a billion dollars to a cause how does he know it will get to where it’s needed? How does he stop it being diverted into the wrong pockets?

Well, Jeff Bezos thinks he may have found a way. He’s just given $100 million to Dolly Parton, the elderly country and western singer. Dolly, he reckons, is incorruptible and so he’ll just leave it to her to make philanthropic use of the cash. It’s a splendid solution as I’m sure we’ll all agree - though what there is to stop people fooling the money out of Dolly every bit as much as they might fool it out of Bezos, I can’t tell you.

And Bezos still has a problem on his hands, poor thing. He’s got $124 billion to give away and he’s already 58 years old. Assuming he lives to, say, 80, that means he has to give away about $5 billion a year, which means he has to find 50 or so trustworthy Dolly Parton figures to give a hundred million to every year, which is one a week for the rest of his life. And it still won’t make him loved.

It’s tough stuff, money.