Most either do nothing really of note, or donate it to "causes", which may be good, but kind of boring.
God does not come down from the heavens and bestow money that one spends on what one chooses. People value his companies because he’s there. TSLA will instantly collapse in valuation if he exits.
I’m not even kidding. If you can pass the regulation, environmental, land permits, local opposition etc. you will be a hundred millionaire maybe a billionaire.
As an aside this might indicative of today's defective rich. Carnegie built over 2,500 libraries for example.
> he gave away around $350 million (equivalent to $6.9 billion in 2025 dollars), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities
Those famously "richest Americans" were worth single digit billions in today's money. Musk is reportedly worth $600-800 billions. Imagine what he could do with that money. The Gilded Age industrialists were already devils, but to say the quality of the ultra-rich today is in the gutter would be an offense to the gutter.
What makes Musk's wealth really incredible is how much of it is based on hot air (TSLA).
It's a tale as old as Plato: those most likely to WANT to rule are exactly the 'candidates' who absolutely should not.
One of the things this does is gets you surrounded by supplicants and yes-men trying to tell you what you want to hear to get your money. It destroys social feedback. Nobody will tell you you're wrong. This is not good for mental health.
Who would you be able to spend time with? Most of your friends and family would still have to work. Of course, you could offer them to leave their jobs and give them money so they won't have to worry and they could spend time with you. But then it leads to the social feedback issue, so even those closest to you don't want to rock the boat.
I really don't like how Bill Gates and Microsoft made their money, but at least he has realized that in his twilight years to try to make amends via humanitarian work. Buying the stairway to heaven.