# How would billionaires not only survive, but attempt to keep their elite, upper-hand status, in an apocalypse? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 26, 2026, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198 "2026-06-26T13:30:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/41 "2026-06-28T00:22:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > He thinks a self-sustaining colony will insulate him from the terrors because he knows there’s no answer on Earth. Does anyone, including Elon Musk, think that a Mars colony could be self sustaining, independent of supply deliveries from Mother Earth? There are so many raw materials and manufactured goods that Mars will not be able to produce. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/42 "2026-06-28T00:29:44Z")
You know that, and I know that, and well over 8,000,000,000 people on Earth know that. Does Musk? I think so. Some people respond to knowing that the earth will end by giving away all their possessions and standing on top of a hill, hoping for a miracle that never comes. Maybe this is Musk’s cope. He will spend all his trillion\* on the project and still be left on top of a hill with the rest of us. \* With the drop in SpaceX shares, Must is no longer a trillionaire. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/43 "2026-06-28T00:52:57Z")
Earth is doomed in the long term measured in billions of years. Humanity in the medium term of millions of years. You, me, and Elon are doomed in the _very_ short term measured in a few decades max for sure, and more probably 20 years max. No need to climb that hill in our lifetimes. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/44 "2026-06-28T11:20:08Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I guess the degree of the apocalypse would matter. If it was a ‘soft apocalypse’ where, say, a plague had destabilized society but there were still plenty of people and infrastructure left on the outside, and rebuilding in a generation or less would be reasonable, gold should hold its value. The thing is, people die - gold doesn’t. If an apocalypse kills of the majority of mankind, the market will be flooded with gold from blasted banks and jewelry looted from the homes and bodies of the dead, causing the price of gold to crater. Fewer people X same amount of gold = gold is worth much less. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/45 "2026-06-28T13:58:15Z")
Well, here is hoping that Starlink will fail and cause a Kessler syndrome cascade and keep him stuck here with everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/46 "2026-06-28T14:08:07Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > They think they’ll continue to win if civilisation collapses because they’re winners, so obviously amazing. Many of them probably kind of _want_ civilisation to collapse because they’re bored now; they already won and the game stopped being interesting. I think they feel that our system is holding them back. They don’t see that our system is holding them up. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/47 "2026-06-28T16:43:54Z")
> [@solost](#): > > But at some point they are going to have trouble, either from outside: the desperate survivors pounding on the reinforced bunker door, who eventually figure out how to break in; or from inside: a bunker crew mutiny. If I’m a low-level bunker engineer, what’s to stop me from either sabotaging the life-support equipment, or refusing to fix normal wear and tear, until I get what I want? Luckily this is a serious issue since all governments require consent of the governed in one form or another. Either through incentives or fear. The security apparatus will know how to overthrow the billionaire anytime they want. Methods as mentioned include making the security soldier’s families survival dependent on servicing the billionaire. Or letting the security services know they will have large amounts of power when they eventually return to the surface. A bunker is not designed to be lived in for eternity. Its probably only for a few years. Even an asteroid like the one that killed the dinosaurs would only make the surface unlivable for a few years. Supposedly this is a major reason billionaires are pushing for robots so much, because they’d rather have programmed robots as servants and security than humans with their own needs. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2026, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/48 "2026-06-28T17:37:25Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Even an asteroid like the one that killed the dinosaurs would only make the surface unlivable for a few years. [Best guess](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Chicxulub/global-effects/) is a decade or two of cooling due to ejecta blocking the sunlight then a rise of temperature due to greenhouse gasses for hundreds if not thousands of years. Just how big are those freezers full of Chilean sea bass and filet mignon? [![](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Chicxulub/images/thumb/ThermalEvolution.jpg) ](https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Chicxulub/images/thumb/ThermalEvolution.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/49 "2026-06-29T10:54:55Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > It’s sort of like Varys’s riddle in GoT about where the true power lies between a King, a Rich Man and a Priest each telling a Sellsword (mercenary) to kill the other two. It lies where people believe it lies. I always thought - appropriately enough for this thread - that in this instance power pretty clearly lies with the sellsword. The other three are supplicants, bidding for that guy to do what they cannot. I think how things shake out is dependent on what kind of actual surplus we’re talking about. If we’re genuinely in an apocalypse where being in the bunker just means you starve to death a few months later than the surface dwellers, then it’s pretty chaotic - your lifespan in inversely related to the number of mouths you have to share food with, so everyone’s rational move is to reduce the denominator. You might get temporary alliances and protestations of loyalty, you might even get a stable state where with few enough survivors the advantage of killing people off isn’t worth the effort/risk, but it’s going to be pretty grim and futile either way up. If there is the prospect of recovery, where you are going to need a viable community that co-ordinates both resource and effort, it gets more interesting. At that point killing off too many people has a negative impact on your survival chances - but the question of how resources and tasks are distributed, who gets to make that decision, and what share of resources fairly compensates them for taking on the weighty burden of rule is still a live one. Subsistence levels of production simply can’t support any kind of elite, but if there’s a surplus then it can be distributed according to some scheme. You could have a feudal-esque system where power/resource is distributed on an openly contractual system, you could have a caste system where the kind of work you do determines what access to resources you have - both of those offer the billionaire some opportunity to maintain a degree of status, if they can persuade people that they are the ones who determine caste status or the person with whom the contract is signed. But both of those depend on being able to be seen as a neutral first-among-equals type, which is not going to be easy. ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198/50 "2026-06-29T21:08:03Z")
I’m sure many elites have bunkers and so on as the most evil kind of insurance policy where they can drive civilization into a thresher at breakneck speeds for their own benefit because they “know” they’re going to be fine if Mad Max and The Road become a reality. Evil doesn’t even begin to describe it. This is the central premise of Punisher: The End by Garth Ennis. It’s like a serial killer that knows if he ever gets caught he can just teleport away and continue killing people in another world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-billionaires-not-only-survive-but-attempt-to-keep-their-elite-upper-hand-status-in-an-apocalypse/1031198.md?page=2)