You cannot have that much wealth and operate in an ethical way, it’s not possible. Just like you cannot have non-consensual sex with somebody in an ethical way, there is no scenario where that is possible.
Just because a system allows you to do something doesn’t make it morally acceptable to do it. Right now, it’s trivial to scam people out of tens of thousands of dollars using meme crypto-currency. But just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s morally acceptable.
That’s the classic, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.” incorrect, you can hate both the player, and the game, it’s not mutually exclusive.
Capitalism is a fundamentally evil system. It allows and creates incentives for people to make effectively unlimited amounts of money by exploiting others. Billionaires are the ultimate example of what happens when Capitalism is allowed to run rampant for centuries. No one person should be able to amass that amount of wealth and power, it’s wrong, and it indicates deep societal problems.
An ethical way to operate a company would be some kind of employee-owned structure, where everybody who works for the company has equal say in how it operates. They get to decide if they want a CEO, who it is, and what they get paid. They get to decide collectively what the company does with the profits. They might decide to equally distribute it to all employees. They might decide to reinvest some percentage in better workflows, better equipment, or nicer facilities. The point is it would actually be democratic.
Also, I know this guy wasn’t a Billionaire. There are other ways to be a bad person than being a billionaire.
Do you think merely agreeing to something makes the arrangement acceptable? A mugger sticks a gun to my head and says, “give me your wallet or I’ll kill you.” I give him my wallet. Was that actually a real, consensual choice? Of course not, agreement is a necessary condition for a fair contract, but not a sufficient one.
If you’re doing the work, you’re entitled to the fruits of your labor. Slavery is the exact inverse of that, where you are entitled to none of the fruits of your labor.
Capitalism tries to split the difference, where depending on a complex set of contractual agreements of dubious legitimacy, you are entitled to some arbitrary amount of fruit for your labor.
There are degrees of severity of course, some relationships are far more exploitative than others.
There isn’t a magical number where a business becomes unethically profitable. The issue with Capitalism isn’t one of degree. It’s not like a bath that’s too hot, where the only issue is the temperature needs to be lowered.
If your business operates in a way that is undemocratic, it’s unethical. Doesn’t matter if all the employees agreed to it, doesn’t matter if they all signed contracts permitting it, doesn’t matter that the legal system allows the business to operate like that.
Now of course, as I said, there are degrees. A mom & pop flower shop that employs local high school kids as part time workers, pays them well, and treats them nicely, that’s not a huge issue. Unethical still, but not terrible. It’s like cheating on a middle school pop quiz, still wrong, but extremely minor.
You also brought up the issue of practicality. This requires a lot of depth to respond to, so would you prefer to pivot to that, or stay on the more theoretical questions about Capitalism and exploitation?