CC Pung’s musings on Elon Musk, the billionaire.
BILLIONAIRE Elon Musk is much talked about currently not only because he’s rich, but also his dip into American politics and soon to pick up a role in President Trump’s Cabinet.
More and more commentators are prying into his rise, his charactee, his agenda and whether he is a humanitarian and free-speech advocate that he tried to portray himself as.
What caught me was what Elon did with the millions (in cash!) he earned from his inventions early in his life.
Even after the sale of Pay-Pal netted him in excess of USD150 million, he reinvested the money.
Most mere mortals suddenly drenched in Musk’s kind of wealth would have gone nuts shopping for expensive cars, over valued mansions and even more overvalued celebrities.
Reminds me of my Malaysia.
A Merdeka Centre survey published this week says that of more than 1500 malay/bumiputras asked if the rights/privileged accorded to them since 1970 should continue, 73 percent said yes.
Those discriminatory policies have in the last 50÷ years significantly enlarged the Malay/bumi middle class but a vast number in the same community still constitutes the majority of Malaysia’s B40, the poor bottom 40% of the population.
And, not a single one of the Malay/bumi group ranks among the top Forbes-ranked billionaires from Malaysia.
Why is this? Haven’t the Malay/bumi been given all the rights and privileged to higher education, lucrative govt contracts the last half a century?
While Musk ploughed back his riches into making more money, it is obvious that the privileged class of Malaysians have other ideas, and probably not the best of ideas.
I think the rights and privileges have turned this group of my fellow countrymen into the proverbial elephant who, having been pegged to a restraint from young, continues to be restrained by the same tiny peg although it has grown into a massive beast way too big for the peg.
In the same Merdeka Centre survey, young and well educated Malays unabashedly felt fear about the dismantling of the privilege infrastructure.
Generational land owners protected by special native land laws that leave out non natives also fear the stoppage of a variety of govt handouts.
They own productive land. So what’s holding them back?
They have subsidies whether they grow rice, rubber or oil palm on their land. Isnt that good enough?
It brings to mind the Chinese character ‘foo’ or ‘fook’which means ‘prosperoty’ or ‘blessing’ or ‘good fortune’.
The construction of this Chinese pictogram comprises strokes that respectively stands for ‘bless’ ‘one’ ‘plot’ ‘land’.
Pictogram is several thousand years old. A journey to blessing is built on a piece of land.
The Malaysian Chinese don’t articulate on this, but I think that is still in their DNA.
But lo and behold, Chinese Malaysians have no access to land other than buying it off the market.
They can’t, for example, move into any unalienated government land, farm it, and a few years later claim ownership under what’s called Native Customary Rights.
Native right may once have been required in Malaysia to empower the Native population to compete and to rise economically. But its usefulness has become its Achilee’s Heel. Once the Malay/bumiputras could not compete.
Fifty years later they can compete but don’t want to, haven’t the confidence to, or refused to compete because it’s easier to depend on entitlement.
Perhaps some people forgot that entitlement only applies in Malaysia.
It’s useless in a borderless world. MALAYSIA, with just 32+ million people can’t be alone, neither can they afford to remain Jaguh Kampung.
Oops, I got sidetracked. I thought I was on Musk.
By the way many of his ex and present workers think he’s an asshole.
Well, he’s an a-hole who makes his money.
The pseudo rich among us have theirs blown in by discriminatory winds.
Editor:
C C Pung is a Sabah Justice of Peace and Tokoh Wartawan Sabah and FT Labuan.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com
