You’re right, though I would note that J. Paul Getty, like Donald Trump and William Randolph Hearst, was himself a 2nd generation rich person. It’s absolutely true that the children of the extremely wealthy are at great risk of becoming wastrels, but Trump follows a pattern of *some* rich offspring who parlay the previous generation’s wealth into something even grander. To lesser extent this is also true of people like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who were born into moderate wealth and became uber-rich. It’s really the 3rd and 4th generations of the rich people who seem to be at the greatest risk of screwing up. And then when you get to like 12th generation of extreme wealth like the DuPonts some real eccentric wackos are more the rule than the exception.
I think that when Trump was very young, his dad wasn’t especially wealthy — “old money” wealthy like Getty and Hearst. The big Trump money came later on. DJT didn’t start life with a silver spoon in his mouth like the other guys did. Early on, Trumps lived in a modest house and there was no elegance during the formative years of his life. That could make a difference.
Read a bio on the Vanderbilt family recently. The 3rd and 4th generation pissed it away in grand style on the big houses that just ate money.