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As a westerner this is some of the hardest stuff to understand. Everything else I've read has some sort of parallel, or understandable human trait that takes its own cultural form, but this debate over semi-polygamy doesn't have any equal in western society. We've made it anathema for so long that traditional family values limit the number of kids to one woman, and the more progressive side considers it oppressive to have multiple women legally attached to one man.

If any American guy tried to publicly work towards 100 kids, rich or not he would be crushed by lawsuits before he got to 10.

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I mean, it's not that hard to have children with women you aren't married to? There are a lot of American men with many children from different mothers. Other than paying for child support - which it sounds like he has been financially supporting the kids - I don't think anything in this case would be illegal in the US. I def agree the public blowback/reception would be very different and that might make it impossible, but I don't think laws around polygamy are the cultural difference.

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I think it would be harder to consistently get full custody of the babies you have with your virginal harem, even if you're a billionaire. If the biological mother hasn't done anything wrong, judges are pretty reluctant to award literally zero custody. So in the US, it would get a lot messier in the earlier stages when he was having kids with girlfriends, because he'd have to deal with co-parenting and all that.

But if he was in the US, he probably would've just started with surrogacy, since it's legal.

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Thats true, I guess a harem of baby mamas is a better equivalent. Supporting them to à point of having a "chief" or "favorite" still surprises me though

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Musk appears to have similar aims, he's already on 10 right now. Going back a bit further, John Paul Getty had something like a harem, although not with such a focus on procreation.

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But this is like Musk pinning a post at the top of his X account with an application for hot singles in the area. It boggles the mind

Although considering the last few years, that's not totally out of character

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How did she manage to abscond with that much money? Like, presumably he doesn't keep it in physical cash, right?

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I assume it's not physical cash, but there's not a whole lot of details of exactly what happened either. I just know she somehow managed to get the money from China to Japan, not sure what was involved.

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This is amazing. I wonder how media and X would react if this drama happened in the US.

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