Article

Character

Ethics

Generosity

Leading

26 November 2025

5 min read

Elon Musk and the trillion-dollar question

What happens when generosity becomes the ultimate power move?

Sam Tomlin

Sam Tomlin is a Salvation Army officer, leading a local church in Liverpool where he lives with his wife and children.

Musk eclipsing the moon.

Musk Foundation.

Human beings like to mark the first time things are done. The first moon landing has been immortalized; Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic; my football geekiness reminds me the first £1m football transfer was Trevor Francis from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest.

We leant recently that Elon Musk could be the first person to earn a $1 trillion remuneration package. It is not quite that simple, however, with Tesla shareholders only granting this if certain conditions are met over the course of a number of years, but the media like a good headline and seemingly this will contribute another ‘first’ for the history books. Reports suggest that Musk actually lives a fairly modest life (for a billionaire!) and he seems more driven by political and moral questions than securing a lavish lifestyle for its own sake, whether you agree with him or not.

Questions have arisen about what could be done with $1 trillion. Apparently, this could buy every single car sold in the USA in a year, 175 billion big macs or if you are more philanthropically minded, you could surely make a dent in world hunger or global debt. If we are waiting for a big give-away from Musk, we might be waiting a while, however. In 2022 he said that it is ‘very hard to give away money effectively’ if you want tangible outcomes rather than the optics of doing good.

What does Christian teaching have to say about excessive wealth or wealth more generally? There are over 2,000 verses in the Bible about wealth and a significant amount of Jesus’ teachings concern money.

In his book Money and Power, theologian and sociologist Jacques Ellul suggests Christians tend to look at wealth through the lens of their society. In the West this means we look at it through economic systems. Individual action achieves little by itself so we look for systems to fix our problems, be they capitalism, Marxism, collectivism, or whatever: ‘All I have to do is campaign for socialism or conservatism, and as soon as society's problems are solved, I will be just and virtuous – effortlessly.’ As well as absolving individuals of their responsibility, this also fails to capture a key aspect of the Bible’s view of money: its personal character. Looking at wealth through economic systems assumes money is just a ‘thing’ to be used for good or bad and something about which we can approach with cool neutrality. The name Jesus gives to wealth is ‘Mammon,’ which he contrasts with God: you must choose to serve one or the other.

Mammon is described as an agent or power from which we need to be liberated. Some Christians argue that the liberation of salvation allows them to hold onto wealth because they can possess it without being possessed. This is the standard view of wealth in the Western church. Christians have largely lost any collective sense that accumulating wealth might be a problem probably because we live in a society where our economic model relies on our greed and consumption.

Why does Jesus say we have to choose between serving God and mammon? Quite simply because it cuts to the heart of where we put our trust. The repeated question of Bible is: where do you put your trust? In the chariots of princes, in alliances with other nations, in the health of your bank balance, or in God? Money provides the opportunity to direct the course of our lives to a significant degree. Most Christians in the West will sing about fully relying on God when in reality we put our trust in money which allows us to determine where we live, the friends we have, the very trajectory of our lives.

This, I suggest, is the essence of the Bible’s teaching on wealth or Mammon. Even before arguments based on giving to alleviate poverty (which are far from unimportant) the question of wealth is intrinsically linked to belief that God can be trusted or not. It is not impossible to be wealthy and faithfully follow God. It is also possible to be materially poor and far from God. It is a smaller step, however, to faithfulness and the Kingdom of God from a simple life than from one of abundance and control that money gives you. When you have little, you have little other choice than to rely on God. Trust and lack of human control are literally built into the fabric of your everyday life in a way that is alien for those who live with more than they need. Learning to trust God therefore will come more naturally as it is a pattern that is familiar.

This is not to romanticise poverty. I am a Salvation Army officer and see the crushing reality of debt, addiction and need on a regular basis. William Booth, co-founder of this Christian tradition once said, “It is impossible to comfort men's hearts with the love of God when their feet are perishing with cold.”

In light of this, there is an act which strips the power of money more than anything else according to Christian teaching, and that is giving. It is more blessed to give than receive, says Jesus. The reason this is the case is the same for anything that can take control of our lives, be it sex, power, status or whatever. By giving we show Mammon its rightful place: service of God and humanity. If we are prepared to give something away it does not have power over us. This is why Christians consistently give portions of their income away to their church; on top of this many give to charities and/or store a pot to give away spontaneously as God leads. While it is not mandated for all, a number of notable Christian figures in history have felt a call to give the majority of their wealth away as a sign of their own freedom: St Francis, Melania and Pipanius, Leo Tolstoy to name but a few. Giving is good for the soul in Christian teaching.

I am not an economist and don’t claim expertise on the efficiency of grand systems to alleviate the world’s problems. Despite the inherent unease at the prospect of such vast inequality represented by Musk, simply projecting all of society’s ills onto others absolves us of our complicity in inequality. From a Christian perspective maybe Musk and any of us who store up more than we need in barns as Jesus puts it, can be reminded that giving robs wealth of its tendency to ensnare and control, and this freedom can be enjoyed right now. As Paul reminds the Christians in Galatia: ‘It is for freedom you have been set free, do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery,’ by which Mammon and other distractions long to trap us.

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Article

Belief

Creed

Leading

Politics

17 October 2025

5 min read

Let's keep hope weird, Zack

Amid growing grief for the future, the Greens' leader is calling for 'ordinary hope'

Lauren Westwood

Lauren Westwood works in faith engagement communications for The Salvation Army.

Zack Polanski returns to Manchester.

The Green Party

The recent Green Party’s political broadcast has been praised for its emotional clarity, moral urgency and a call to action that has seen party membership surge.

Looking down the lens, recalling his years growing up in the north of England, party leader Zack Polanski sighs,

“There was something in the air… a kind of ordinary hope.”

As he walks through a typical British city, filmed in Manchester, lined with terraced houses and bright-white lights beaming over takeaway shops and industrial bins, he diagnoses the collective hopelessness of a ‘people too tired to fight, to sleep.’

In just under four minutes, Polanski disarms objections to his cause with a sensitive, poetic script. He opens by referring to the common experience of a satisfying bowl of cornflakes – before plainly illustrating the socioeconomic injustice facing the everyman. He then makes the case for fair wealth taxation, and closes with the cheery challenge:

‘Let’s make hope normal again.’

It’s a compelling appeal that resonates with those weary of cynicism. But what does it actually mean?

To be clear, I call this to question because I desperately want good things for our country. Warm homes, clean air, safe streets and an NHS that works for all – I believe these things should be normal. But I’m not sure I want to normalise hope.

Because real hope is weird.

Hope is not to be confused with optimism, or good prospects, or a positivity about the future reserved for the privileged. It’s not increased with social mobility or sitting comfortably in a five-year plan. Hope is not even the belief that things will get better. Real hope is much truer than that. It is a deep knowing that all shall be well, even when that seems foolish – a glance through the ancient literature of the Bible points to hope as singing in a prison cell, relief in the wilderness, resurrection in the face of crucifixion.

As NT Wright, the theologian, puts it: ‘Hope is what you get when you suddenly realise a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word.’ This kind of hope doesn’t waiver with the housing market, interest rates, or inheritance tax. It’s not the result of good policy or strong polling. It’s the stubborn belief that love wins – and has, in fact, already won – even, or especially, when it looks like all is lost.

This is where Polanski’s got it right. There is a present and growing grief for the future. Across the UK, millions feel disengaged, disrespected and undervalued. Distrust of politicians, division in communities and loss of faith in the systems supposed to be for our benefit seem to be at an all-time high.

Polanski’s call to hope comes at a time when a redeemed order seems impossible or, at best, several generations away. But, instead of accepting the kind of ‘ordinary hope’ Polanski experienced back in his youth, the answer to our deepest longing lies in realising we need something extraordinary to happen and knowing that we’re allowed to believe that it will.

We don’t need to be desensitised to hope – we need the opposite. We need to be reawakened to everyday glimmers of redemption – the neighbour who pops by for sugar and stays for a safe conversation, the health worker who acknowledges a former patient with a grateful smile, the family whose fear is soothed by the kind gesture of an elderly white neighbour – and recognise our share and our part in bringing it on, believing there is yet more and better to uncover.

Polanski is incredibly perceptive in his address to the concerns of the hard-working plumber and the fledgling hair salon owner, nervous that their hard earnings and ambition will be cut short: ‘I wondered, “Why did they think I was talking about them?” And now, I get it. It’s because it’s too hard to picture.’

Hope, too, is hard to see. A better world is hard to imagine. Though Polanski is advocating for a public reform and reimagination of what it means to be taxed, our souls are capable of the sudden realisation that another way is possible. We can experience life-altering revelation that leads to fresh vision, both for what is seen and for the yet unseen.

For the Christian, hope is not some far-out abstract concept, but a gift made real through belief in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – a Middle Eastern man who walked the earth two thousand years ago, held no title, had no place to lay his head, and called himself the Way, the Truth and the Life. See? Real hope gets weird.

Instead of being content to accept an ordinary hope – made small, palatable and unremarkable – we can embrace hope as it was designed. A liberating reality that brings steady assurance to every thought, every reaction, every decision and, yes, every vote. This confidence comes not because we are sure of our own rightness, but precisely because we are not. We submit to its mystery because a hope that we can control, mediate and measure will never lead to the transformation we most long for.

Do I long to see an increased hope for the future across the UK? Of course. But do I believe we should ever grow accustomed to hope? I don’t think so. We need contagious hope – wild and holy and strange, anything but normal.

Tax the super-rich so that children can eat, parents can sleep, and ordinary people can be lifted out of extraordinary poverty, if you want – but let’s keep hope weird.

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Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief

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