Elon Musk Has Made $992 Every Second of His Career — Here’s How the Numbers Break Down
The Wall Street Journal has put Elon Musk’s $970 billion fortune into human terms, and the math is impossible to wrap your head around.
What does $970 billion look like? The Wall Street Journal decided to find out, running a deep analysis of Elon Musk’s fortune ahead of the SpaceX IPO that could make him the world’s first trillionaire. The answer is that he has earned $992 every second over his 31-year career.
To put that in perspective: a median American household earning $83,730 a year would need 11 million years to match his fortune. Musk could buy every NFL and NBA franchise and still have more than $500 billion left over. His wealth also surpasses the annual GDP of more than 125 countries, including South Africa, where he was born.
The only catch is that most of it is paper wealth tied to stock prices, not cash he can just withdraw from an ATM. But still, building companies like SpaceX and Tesla from scratch is the fastest path to numbers the world has never seen before. One more number to add: SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share yesterday, valuing the company at $1.77 trillion. When trading begins next week, someone will need to run the math all over again.
What does $970 billion look like? The Wall Street Journal decided to find out, running a deep analysis of Elon Musk’s fortune ahead of the SpaceX IPO that could make him the world’s first trillionaire. The answer is that he has earned $992 every second over his 31-year career.
To put that in perspective: a median American household earning $83,730 a year would need 11 million years to match his fortune. Musk could buy every NFL and NBA franchise and still have more than $500 billion left over. His wealth also surpasses the annual GDP of more than 125 countries, including South Africa, where he was born.
The only catch is that most of it is paper wealth tied to stock prices, not cash he can just withdraw from an ATM. But still, building companies like SpaceX and Tesla from scratch is the fastest path to numbers the world has never seen before. One more number to add: SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 a share yesterday, valuing the company at $1.77 trillion. When trading begins next week, someone will need to run the math all over again.
