Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Every superbeing has an origin story. Lots of movies are made about superbeing origin stories. People dig origin stories.

Some superbeings chose the side of good and some chose the side of evil. The origin story factors into the choice.

Oligarchs have origin stories.

When a Targaryan has a child, the gods flip a coin. Heads, and you get Tyrion. Tails, and you get Aerys.

Jeff Bezos once worked at MacDonalds. He was not born an oligarch. He was not born great.

Jeff Bezos got into Princeton. We all know that this by itself means
nothing. Elite ivy league colleges have become soft.

Bezos tackled Princeton with the goal of becoming a theoretical physicist. That
means something. People that aspire to be evil oligarchs don't tackle physics.
Bezos gave physics a sincere try. He took the hardass quantum mechanics class,
and he sincerely studied hard.

Jeff and his friend Joe were given a physics problem, and they spent 3 sincere
hours on it. They got nowhere.

Jeff and Joe did a smart thing. They didn't pretend that they solved it. They
humbly conceded defeat and showed the problem to Yosanta, who is regarded as
Princeton's most badass physics student.

Yosanta solved the problem. He solved it fast, and he did it in his head.

Bezos said that that was the moment he realized that theoretical physics was not his destiny. Bezos chose a different destiny. Bezos chose oligarch destiny.

Elon Musk was born an oligarch. Musk's father owns an emerald mine. Musk never
worked at MacDonalds.

Musk got into an elite Ivy League school, the University of Pennsylvania. Whatever. His father is an oligarch and surely goosed the school with donations.

Elon Musk owns a physics degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Bezos
flinched and Musk tackled the glare. Musk emerged with a physics degree.

Bezos and Musk both deserve glory. Oligarchs usually rest upon their silver spoons, but sometimes they aspire to more.

Henry Ford was a legit badass engineer. He pioneered the art of manufacturing. Ford also had business sense, and he capitalized his engineering badassness into a business empire.

Henry Ford II inherited this glorious empire. He did not rest upon his silver spoon. He dropped bigly money on a racing team, as bigly as the money that President Roosevelt dropped on the Manhattan Project.

Henry Ford I won the world manufacturing championship. But championship comes with rematch. If you want to be a dynasty, you must defend the championship. Henry Ford II valiantly showed up to defend the championship. He built a racing team and
showed up for the Le Mans race.

The Le Mans race is a legit world championship.

There was worthy competition. Ferrari and Porche. Ford II won. Ford II added new glory to the Ford dynasty. Ford I and Ford II helped to make America great.

Elon Musk was accepted to the Stanford PhD program in Materials Science. That's
hard to do. Stanford is a posh place and there is high demand to get into Stanford, whatever the department.

Stanford has hard and soft departments. Material science is a hardass department.

The life of a Stanford STEM grad student is posh. You get to be a citizen of Stanford, and you also
get a grad student salary. In the humanities, you pay the school for a PhD. In STEM, the school pays you
to get a PhD.

Musk turned down Stanford's offer and instead chose the path of oligarch. Musk founded Paypal.

Though Musk flinched from materials science, Musk deserves credit for heading the company that
created the very fine Tesla car, and the very fine Falcon rocket.

Musk is a legit physics badass. Without this, these glories do not happen.

In the 18th Century, oligarch supremacy was decided by whoever could ship the most spice. England shipped 10 times as much spice as the Dutch East India Company. England became a naval superpower and the Dutch East India Company went bankrupt. The Netherlands was relegated from the Colonialism Premier League.

In the 19th Century, America built more rail miles than all of Europe put together. Yay America! Rail decided the next generation of American oligarchs.

In the 21st Century, what matters is launching stuff to space, and this will decide the next generation of oligarchs.

A herd of oligarchs entered the competition. The result is:

Tons launched to orbit in 2020:

                    Payload  Successes  Fails
                     tons

America  SpaceX       286       26        0    Elon Musk
China    CNSA         242       31        2
America  NASA         103       10        0
Russia   Roscosmos     80       16        0
Europe   ESA           27        4        1
Japan    JAXA           8        4        0
America  Orbital        7        2        0
India    ISRO           2        2        0
Canada   CSA            1        3        0
America  Rocket Lab      .7      6        1    Peter Beck
America  Blue Origin    0        0        0    Jeff Bezos
America  Stratolaunch   0        0        0    Paul Allen and Burt Rutan
S Korea  KARI           0        0        0
America  Virgin Orbit   0        0        0    Richard Branson

Ho ho ho!

Musk kicked the asses of all other oligarchs.

The physics force is strong in Musk.

Musk conquered Twitter. Musk has a plan.

What do you think will happen next?