are literally thousands of mines, some of them big, but most of them quite small. The big mines are into metals and diamonds, the smaller mines are minerals of all varieties.

Looking at the history of mining in South Africa, you'll notice one thing missing from this list of mineral wealth: there's no Emerald listed. I'm not saying they don't have any Emeralds, I'm saying that if there are any Emerald mines, they're small and insignificant.

I owned a calcite mine and had a number of employees, but just because I owned a calcite mine and had employees doesn't mean that I was on the road to becoming an Elon Musk rival.

It's laughable to point to only a partial owner in a small Emerald mine in a country not known for Emeralds (whether or not it's true) and think that it's how the richest man on earth got his leg up on humanity and created a private space industry where none existed, and a successful EV company where none previously existed.