Beyond Rockefeller and worth the GDP of 125 countries: A set of numbers to understand Musk's trillion net worth
Author: Zhao Ying
Original title: If Musk's wealth were to be visualized
Musk is standing on the threshold of becoming the world's first trillionaire, and his wealth is so large that it is difficult for ordinary people to intuitively understand.
According to the “Wall Street Journal” report on the 2nd, Musk's current net assets are about 970 billion US dollars, and the vast majority are held in the form of shares. Once SpaceX's IPO is completed, this figure is likely to break the trillion-dollar mark. In terms of his 31-year career as an entrepreneur, this means he has amassed an average fortune of $992 per second and $3.6 million per hour.
This wealth has surpassed the annual GDP of more than 125 countries around the world, including Norway, Thailand, Argentina, and South Africa — the latter being Musk's birthplace, with an annual GDP of around $480 billion. Measured as a share of US GDP, Musk's wealth is about 3% of the US GDP, easily surpassing John D. Rockefeller, the richest person in US history.
Wealth composition: 90% is locked in equity
According to the Wall Street Journal analysis, of Musk's 970 billion US dollars of wealth, the largest single item came from SpaceX's pre-IPO shares, valued at about 538 billion US dollars; Tesla held shares of about 167 billion US dollars; the total stock options of the two companies were about 150 billion US dollars, and the stock options of the two companies totaled about 150 billion US dollars, which can be used at any time. Additionally, driverless tunneling company The Boring Company and brain-computer interface company Neuralink are each valued at around $5 billion, and real estate, aircraft, and other investment assets are estimated at around $104 billion, as estimated by financial intelligence agency Altrata.
This means that the vast majority of Musk's wealth exists in the form of paper assets, not cash that can be used at any time. He can borrow using his SpaceX and Tesla holdings as collateral, but liquidity is still limited. Musk himself publicly stated in 2020 that he “doesn't own any real estate” and sold a number of California properties, but has since bought homes in Texas.
Time dimension: The average American household needs to work 11 million years
To make this figure more specific, link Musk's wealth to the time dimension: in the 31 years since he co-founded the first American technology company in 1995, he has accumulated an average of about $595 million per minute, about $85.7 million a day, and about $31.3 billion a year.
Based on the US median household income of $8,3730 in 2024, an average American family would need to work over 11 million years to accumulate wealth comparable to Musk's.
Philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns once wrote that the wealth growth rate of the world's richest people has far exceeded the cognitive boundaries of ordinary people. She estimates that if Musk worked 70 hours a week without taking vacations until age 75, his career would have earned around $4.2 million an hour. Musk is known for his intense work — after buying Twitter, he said his weekly working hours soared from around 80 hours to over 120 hours.
The purchasing power imagination: from 2.4 million homes to all NFL teams
The purchasing power of $970 billion is presented in a series of figurative scenarios: this money can buy about 2.4 million ordinary American homes; or buy all 32 NFL teams and all NBA teams, with more than $500 billion left; or build a fleet of more than 10,000 Gulfstream G700 private jets and pay five years of operating costs (including fuel); or simultaneously acquire Accenture, FedEx, Home Depot, UPS, Target, Kroger, Starbucks, CVS Health, Albertsons, Cracker Barrel, and Campbell's all employ over 4 million people.
Historical coordinates: surpassing Rockefeller and rivaling the giants of the industrial age
In terms of wealth as a share of GDP, Musk has surpassed Rockefeller, who is recognized as the richest person in American history. Rockefeller's wealth in 1937 was about 1.4 billion US dollars, accounting for about 1.5% of the US GDP at the time; Musk's wealth accounted for about 3% of the current US GDP, which is double that ratio.
Rockefeller relied on the wave of industrialization to turn Standard Oil into a monopoly giant, which was eventually forcibly split by the federal government. Musk's wealth is built on the three tracks of electric vehicles, commercial space, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, the success of Tesla and SpaceX has also generated multi-billion dollar returns for investors betting on Musk and a large number of employee millionaires.
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