Elon Musk is crazy rich, almost too rich. Musk is the call a million dollars ‘spare change’ type of rich, which is pretty hard to comprehend for 99 per cent of people.
With an estimated net worth (according to Forbes) of around $400 billion, Musk could wake up with only $1 billion of his wealth left and classify himself as ‘broke’.
But what does $400 billion mean? Brig will break it down in the most logical way: wild comparisons and ridiculous ways Musk could spend it.
Say, for example, you worked a job earning $50,000 a year and never spent any of it. It would then take you eight million years to accumulate the same wealth Musk has. So, you’d have had to have started working when the dinosaurs were around to have the same wealth Musk has- crazy, right?
Meanwhile, Musk is earning more than most people earn a year in a second.
So, what are some crazy things Musk can do with his money?
Give everyone in the United States (334 million) roughly around $1,200 each. Not bad. Checkmate, Mr. Beast!
Buy every NFL, NBA and MLB team and still be able to double the salary of every player.
With $400 billion, Musk could buy roughly 15 per cent of all the homes in New York City, with the median house price being $750,000, turning him into a mega-landlord with more properties than anyone could ever need
End world hunger for an entire decade, with the UN estimating it would cost $40 billion annually.
Give every person in the UK around £6,000, also known as ‘one month’s rent’ in London.
Buy Buckingham Palace, estimated at £308 million, 1,300 times (which wouldn’t work since there’s only one Buckingham Palace!).
If he’s not spending it on this, then what is Muck spending his dough on?
A major plan of Musk has been planning to colonize Mars (probably because Earth is too boring for Musk), thus pouring billions into SpaceX’s Starship program to make humans an interplanetary species.
Another business venture for Musk has been launching 50,000 satellites to provide global broadband coverage, including the most remote regions. It’s really helpful if you need Wi-Fi to watch YouTube in the middle of the ocean.
Perhaps Musk’s most infamous usage of his wealth was when he bought Twitter in April 2022 and rebranded it to X. Since then, Musk has never failed to hit the headlines with his innumerable controversies.
Musk has invested his dough in the Cyber Truck, an electric vehicle that has seen multiple delays over the past couple of years but remains a priority for Tesla.
Neuralink is a development of musk and is a brain chip company which is designed to merge brains with AI, despite it raising some ethical and safety concerns.
Final thoughts: Why Musk’s wealth matters
At $400 billion, Musk’s wealth defies logic. It’s a world-changing amount of money, as highlighted with this article’s examples of how he could spend it. And it is also well known that our politics follow one law: money = power.
Musk could change the world overnight but instead chooses another path of scientific and technological innovation for mankind.
While some of his ventures, like renewable green energy with Tesla and space exploration with SpaceX, have societal benefits, the sheer concentration of wealth in one person’s hands raises questions about serious economic inequality.
So maybe it’s time we started asking: should we demand that this absurd wealth goes somewhere useful?
Featured Image Credit: Pexels Free Photos.
I am a third-year Politics and Journalism Studies student at the University of Stirling (2022-) and a writer and sub-editor for the Brig for over a year (Nov. 2023-), focusing mainly on political topics.
