Musk is about to become a trillionaire. But how much is $1 trillion worth?
Elon Musk is about to become the world's first trillionaire.
Musk already owns $273 billion in shares and options due to his role as CEO of Tesla. But if the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of SpaceX - his rocket and artificial intelligence company - goes as planned next week, he could soon be worth an additional $841 billion. (He would own nearly half the shares of SpaceX, whose IPO is projected to be worth $1.77 trillion in total). In total, this represents $1.11 trillion for Musk from just the two publicly traded companies.
However, it is worth highlighting that everything is subject to how investors will continue to evaluate the companies Tesla and SpaceX in the future.
Furthermore, even if someone spent a million dollars an hour, every day, it would still take over a century to spend a trillion dollars.
To help put this into context, here are six things that will (soon) be worth less than Elon Musk's fortune.
Economy of most countries
Around the world, only 20 countries have economies greater than US$1.1 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund. This means that the vast majority of the world's nations have an economy worth less than Musk.
Among them are Taiwan ($977 billion), Ireland ($779 billion), Sweden ($760 billion) and Singapore ($660 billion), as well as South Africa, Musk's home country ($480 billion).
Manhattan Economy
The island of Manhattan, home to many of America's financial and corporate powerhouses, including Wall Street, had a gross domestic product of just over $1 trillion in 2024. That is the most recent year for which data is available from the Federal Reserve.
Properties in Houston
Houston is the third largest city in the United States, behind only New York and Los Angeles. The Texan city is a hub for the growing US oil and gas industry.
All of the city's properties, both residential and commercial, are valued at about $879 billion, according to the most recent data available.
New Vehicles Purchased in the U.S.
After housing, cars and trucks are the largest purchase made by most Americans.
The average price of a new car hit a record $48,402 last year. Still, Americans purchased 16.3 million new cars in 2025, costing a total of $789 billion.
Other technology billionaires
Musk is already the richest person in the world. But his net worth could soon leave his tech billionaire peers even further behind.
Even if we add up the wealth estimates of the next four richest - Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos - their combined net worths of $1.09 trillion fall just short of Musk's wealth.
Like Musk, they all made a fortune from shares in the technology companies they founded.
Professional sports teams
$1 trillion could buy virtually every sports team on the planet.
In fact, the world's 50 most valuable sports teams are worth just a third of that when combined - an estimated value of $353 billion, according to Forbes, which tracks sports team valuations. This ranges from the most valuable, the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, valued at around US$13 billion, to the 50th ranked, the NBA's Toronto Raptors, worth around US$5 billion.
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Source: CNN