The billionaire brat pack can’t stop whinging. They’re only embarrassing themselves

Last week, it was revealed that Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman, recently acquired some 8 million shares in a company owned by Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. Notably, Rinehart made it clear that her company’s investment in Space X – worth almost $US1.4 billion at the time of disclosure – wasn’t just about the money, it was about her friend being “an exceptional and brilliant person”.

With friends like these who needs the adoration of tax-paying plebs? Apparently, the super rich do. Now, in addition to expecting us to marvel at their ability to generate personal wealth greater than some national GDPs, the billionaire brat pack wants us to love them for their personalities, too.

Rinehart issued her glowing praise of Musk just as the aspiring space coloniser was weathering the latest online shitstorm of his own making.

In an interview with The Economist, Musk bragged that his audience of almost 250 million people on X, the social media company he owns, made him “a popular guy”.

But when he was challenged over his posts weighing in on international politics and asked about his forays into territory he knows little about, Musk spat the dummy.

“Maybe some people do loathe me, that’s probably true. I don’t care … They hate you [the media] far more than they hate me,” he told journalist Zanny Minton Beddoes.

“I think you’re the problem, the media. And speaking of loathing, you’re loathed far more than I am, and you don’t even seem to realise. You’re hated, do you even know that? You probably don’t.”

His defensiveness suggested that though Musk was aware his wealth gave him incredible power, it couldn’t make people like him.

Fellow Silicon Valley billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is all too familiar with this dichotomy.