Yes but you don't need the money of 1000 to 10000 average workers to afford luxuries. Again Tom the historical norm to push new technology is 20 to 40 times average pay for a CEO. Still waiting for your explanation of why modern CEOs deserve more for performance no better than the historical norm. That is a peace of cake compared to explaining Merril pay and that of the other failing megacompanies. The reality is it was a type of shell game con game only slightly more legit than Madoff's for almost all these over payed CEO's. Merge and spinoff merge and spin-off, keep moving the chairs so fast no one knows how well you are really performing. You need to develope a sense of smell Tom. There is no justification for rapid rises in pay for for no improvement in performance under the ideals that are supposed to power capitalism. Free markets are not supposed to be great simply because they are free. Total freedom is anarchy and would include no limits on receiving stolen property. Free markets are supposed to be good because they are the most efficient and benefit the most people. When that stops happening Democracies have a legitimate right to use regulations to make sure someone isn't rigging the system to their benefit.

Musk is way ahead of the other would be rocketeers. For what I think was 20 mil Allen got a tiny suborbital vehicle that someone else had to pay to develope commercially. For 5 to 10 times that Musk got potentially game changing orbital rockets with paying customers although I'm not sure how much outside investment he got. How Much did Branson add on top of Allen? I'm not aware of other big investments in green technology either other than Gates' investments in ethanol. I think Musk and Bigalo may quickly bypass suborbital tourism on to orbital and lunar tourism.

Regards,
Mark