• Robert Reich asserted that the idea of ​​the “self made man” is a lie;

• As an example, he used several billionaires, Elon Musk and his father’s emerald mine;

• Elon Musk denies owning the mine, calling Reich an “idiot and a liar”.

Billionaire Elon Musk overreacted in response to Robert Reich, the former US Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, who claimed that “self-made billionaires are a myth – just like unicorns”.

The Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder called Reich an “idiot and a liar” after the economist claimed Musk struggled to accumulate his wealth because his family “owned an emerald mine.” Musk then directed Reich to a Jeremy Arnold post on Substack, objecting to the idea that Musk came from wealth.

The University of California, Berkeley professor said in a video that “being a ‘self-made man’ is a good idea” because it “suggests that anyone can reach the top if they are ready to work hard enough”. “That’s the American dream,” he added, before mentioning several billionaires who he says were helped by their families, such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

“The origins of self-made billionaires are often described as a rise from ‘poor to rich’, at the top, fueled only by personal courage and the courage to take risks – like dropping out of college or starting a business in a garage. said Reich.

“But in reality, the origins of many billionaires are not so humble,” he said, adding that billionaires went from “rich to even richer” because they were “rooted in the upbringing of the class. upper middle”. One of the examples cited by Reich was Elon Musk, saying the billionaire “came from a wealthy family that owned an emerald mine in apartheid South Africa.”

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In 2018, Business Insider published a story revealing that Musk’s father, Errol Musk, owned an emerald mine in Zambia, a fact Musk vehemently denies.

In March last year, Musk tweeted that the article was “fake” and that “I came to Canada alone in 1989 with about 2,500 Canadian dollars”, and that “(he) started his first company without funding and just a computer built There is no evidence of an ’emerald mine’.

“My father and his family depended on my brother and I for financial support for over 20 years”he added.