Article

Character

Ethics

Generosity

Leading

26 November 2025

1 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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Review

Culture

Economics

Trust

21 November 2025

5 min read

Money’s hidden meanings in a contactless age

The Bank of England Museum reveals the symbolism, morality and power woven into the history of money

Susan Gray

Susan is a writer specialising in visual arts and contributes to Art Quarterly, The Tablet, Church Times and Discover Britain.

The Bank of England vaults.

Bank of England.

Our era of contactless payments obscures the symbolism once lavished on money. But the rich history of meaning, morality and power, layered into everyday transactions, is uncovered at an exhibition at the Bank of England Museum

Building the Bank celebrates 100 years of the current Bank of England building, on the site of Sir John Soane’s original structure, completed in 1827. Surveying a century makes past practices seem quaint: until 1973 the institution was guarded by the Bank Piquet military guard. A 1961 photo shows 12 Guardsmen with bearskin hats and bayonets, together with a drummer or piper, a sergeant and an officer, marching into the Threadneedle Streer entrance. Even now, when the wealth of most people in developed countries is contained in data warehouses, 400,000 gold bars are held in vaults deep beneath the Bank.

Faiths have grappled with money’s impact for millennia. Christianity’s relationship with money is tinged with unease, as St Paul’s oft misquoted letter to Timothy illustrates: “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” Personally, the immobilising feeling of envy, particularly if it is towards friends, does feel exactly like being pierced with blinding toxicity.

Contrastingly, in Hinduism pursuing wealth is one of four pillars of faith, called Artha. In Hinduism attempting to attain material wealth is part of attempting to attain salvation.

Herbert Baker, architect of the Bank of England, embodies moral ambiguity around faith and money. Buried in Westminster Abbey, and architect of Church House next door, Baker established his reputation working for Cecil Rhodes, prime minister of the Cape Colony 1890- 96. Vicar’s son Rhodes is now seen as paving the way for apartheid in southern Africa, and imposing an economically exploitive, racist, and imperialist system on the region. Baker also worked with better- known Edwin Lutyens on government buildings in New Delhi from 1912, declaring of the British Raj’s new seat of power “it must not be Indian, nor English, nor Roman, but it must be Imperial”.

After World War One, Soane’s bank was too small to house the increased staff numbers needed to service the ballooning national debt and financial complexity of the Roaring Twenties. Bordered by major roads at the heart of the City of London, the institution’s footprint could not expand, so Herbert created a design incorporating some of Soane’s classical aspects, but with floors at a greater depth and height than its processor.

From grand gestures to tiny details, classical mythology is a key element of the Bank’s design. Sculptor Charles Wheeler modelled doorknobs showing the face of Mercury. Mercury is the patron deity of finance and communication. Tiles for an officials’ lunchroom show a caduceus, with two bright blue snakes, tails entwined, framing Mercury’s face. Caducei are the symbol of commerce, representing reciprocity and mutually beneficial transactions.

Forty caryatids, the classical female form used in place of a pillar in Greek architecture, were salvaged from Soane’s building and reused. Some caryatids are in the area where old banknotes can be exchanged, besides the museum, now the only part of the Bank open to the public.

Outside, on the dome at the northwest corner of the bank, a gilt bronze statue of Ariel, named after the spirit of the air in The Tempest, represents “the dynamic spirit of the Bank which carries Credit and Trust over the wide world.”

The image of banks as depositories of trust and positive relationships took a pasting worldwide during the 2008 Credit Crisis and lean years that followed. But in 2015 former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, argues that banking services are a key part of functioning communities, and banks should be able to put people before profit. “At the heart of both these expectations is the value of the person as sacred, and all other things as secondary to human dignity. It is a value rooted in many faiths and especially in our Judaeo-Christian tradition. Of course profits have to be made, but they need to be measured not only in terms of their absolute return on capital employed, but also in terms of the human cost of achieving that return.

“Large institutions with adequate balance sheets working to maximise returns from those who can most afford it do not produce a sustainable society in the long term. Such an approach is narrow-minded and short-termist, because sustainable societies are essential to the large companies within them. It is also an immoral approach.”

Mosaics created by Boris Anrep idealise the Bank’ of England’s sunnier intentions towards the wider community. Anrep also designed mosaics for Westminster Cathedral, Tate Britain and the National Gallery. For the Bank, a tiny coin from the reign of Henry VIII known as the George Noble, the first time St George and the dragon appeared on English coinage, was magnified into a roundel showing the galloping saint, visor up, lancing the prostate dragon at the base. The George Noble was one of 50 designs, based on advances in coinage, gracing the Bank’s corridors.

At the main entrance, a mosaic showing a pillar, representing the Bank, is guarded by two lions, referencing the sculpture from Mycenae. The Bank’s global role, and place at the centre of the then British Empire is shown by the constellations of the Plough and Southern Cross, representing the southern and northern hemispheres.

An image of the Empire Clock Baker made for the Bank, - now disassembled - shows an ornate dial, marked in 24 sections, with the sun representing India and an anchor symbolising the port cities of Singapore and Hong Kong.

In 1946 the Bank of England was nationalised, formalising its role as a public institution, operating in a post war decolonialising world, totally different to the one its building had been designed for just 20 years before.

Systems and symbols around money mutate with the times. Money’s intangibility in our time of app and tap payment, makes its power less distinct than in the days of gold sovereigns. But we fool ourselves if we say money is unimportant, because all of history says otherwise.

Building the Bank, Bank of England Museum, until 2026

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