Elon Musk is about to become the first person in human history to be worth more than one trillion US dollars. This amount of wealth is unprecedented and unprecedented in the history of human business development. As CEO of Tesla, Musk currently holds stock and options worth $273 billion. And if his aerospace and artificial intelligence company SpaceX completes its initial public offering as planned next week, his net worth will increase by another $841 billion. Musk holds nearly half of SpaceX's shares, and the total company valuation corresponding to this IPO is expected to reach $1.77 trillion. From these two public companies alone, Musk's combined net worth reaches $1.11 trillion.
In 2022, Space Exploration Technology Company (SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk updated the development progress of starships and super-heavy booster rockets. After the SpaceX listing plan is implemented, Musk will become the first billionaire in the world.
But let’s be clear: Musk’s wealth is all book assets, not huge amounts of cash in the bank. The scale of his wealth depends entirely on market investors’ future valuation judgments of Tesla and SpaceX.
One trillion dollars is equal to ten thousand billion dollars, which is also equal to one million million dollar funds. It is impossible for ordinary people to spend this huge amount of money reasonably throughout their entire lives. Even if $1 million were spent every hour of every day, it would take more than a century to spend all of a trillion dollars.
In order to intuitively understand how huge this number is, here are six types of assets/economies whose total value is about to be lower than Musk’s net worth.
1. The economic size of most countries in the world
According to the International Monetary Fund, only 20 countries in the world have an annual economic output of more than $1.11 trillion. This means that the GDP of most countries in the world is less than Musk’s net worth.
These include Taiwan ($977 billion), Ireland ($779 billion), Sweden ($760 billion), Singapore ($660 billion), and Musk’s native South Africa ($480 billion).
2. Manhattan’s economic output
You don’t have to go overseas to find areas in the United States whose economies are smaller than Musk’s portfolio.
Manhattan Island is home to Wall Street and a large number of American financial and industry giants. Manhattan's gross product was just over $1 trillion in 2024, the latest available data from the Federal Reserve.
3. Total value of all real estate in Houston
Houston is the third largest city in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles. This city located on the Gulf Coast is the core hub of the U.S. oil and gas industry.
The latest statistics show that the total value of all residential and commercial real estate assets in Houston is approximately $879 billion.
4. Total annual new car transactions in the United States
Excluding real estate, cars and trucks are the most expensive purchases in most Americans' lifetimes.
Last year, the average price of a new car in the United States hit a record high of $48,402. Even so, a total of 16.3 million new vehicles will be sold in the United States in 2025, with transactions totaling $790 billion.
5. The total net worth of the top tycoons in other technology industries
Musk is now the richest man in the world, and after SpaceX goes public, his wealth will leave other technology tycoons far behind.
Even if the wealth of the four richest people ranked second to fifth in the world is added up - Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the total wealth of the four is about 1.09 trillion US dollars, which is still slightly lower than Musk's 1.11 trillion US dollars.
Like Musk, these rich people all derive their wealth from equity stakes in technology companies they founded.
6. Total valuation of all professional sports teams in the world
Pictured: Football helmets are placed on the sidelines at the game between the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams, the two most valuable teams in the NFL. The total value of all professional sports teams in the world is less than Elon Musk's net worth.
Buying sports clubs is one of the favorite big-money pastimes of billionaires, but one trillion dollars could buy almost every professional sports team in the world.
Forbes tracks the valuations of major sports clubs all year round. Data shows that the total valuation of the world's top 50 most valuable sports teams is only US$353 billion, which is only one-third of one trillion. At the top of the list is the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, valued at about $13 billion; No. 50 is the NBA's Toronto Raptors, valued at about $5 billion.