If you really think he did nothing at all, then you have absolutely no understanding of how business works or how Tesla works. It's like saying the ship doesn't need a captain because the captain doesn't personally operate or clean a part of the ship.
You are right that it is greed. But that is the very point. That is how our economy works. That is how our government works too. The whole point of checks and balances in the US Constitution is that people are expected to be greedy. Rather than rely on a king to be altruistic, it is expected that people at every level will be greedy so their greed is balanced against the greed of others.
Same thing is true with our economy, the whole point of capitalist economy is it harnesses the greed of everybody to move things forward.
Investors provide capital because they are greedy and want a return on their investment. Their greed is harnessed and put to work, This benefits all by providing a rich market of investment capital for businesses to use. And because they are greedy, because those investors have partial ownership of the company, they affect its direction.
It's not always perfect. Lately far too many business decisions are made based solely on next quarter results at the cost of long-term success, and that is driven by short-term investors. Boeing is a perfect example of that.
But to write the whole system off and say it's all greed and it all sucks and it's all stupid reflects a fundamental lack of understanding how the economy works.
If you want an economy without greed, the best you're probably going to find is communism. That's been tried, it doesn't usually work so well because without a greed incentive pushing things forward, there isn't incentive to innovate or to work at maximum efficiency.
And as for Elon's windfall, I think it's fair to say nobody needs $56 billion. I definitely support a much higher tax rate for the extreme upper income brackets. If you are making more than 50 or 100 million a year income above that should be taxed at a pretty high rate. I am extremely against the extreme income inequality that has happened in this country. When the CEO is making hundreds of millions and the guy mopping the floor relies on government assistance to afford food, something is seriously fucked up.
But I think the solution to that is to bring up the lower guy, raise the minimum wage by a fairly significant amount. I think in most places minimum wage should be ¢15 or $20 an hour.
And I also favor a prohibition that if any of the companies employees rely on government assistance the company loses all tax breaks and government benefits.