Musk is now a trillionaire: What can $1 trillion buy?
What's the story
Elon Musk, the man behind SpaceX, has become the world's first trillionaire. His wealth crossed the $1 trillion mark after SpaceX's stellar market debut. This astronomical figure is hard to fathom, as it is a thousand times larger than a billion dollars and a million times more than a million dollars. But have you ever wondered what this kind of money could actually buy?
Real estate
Homes
In the US, the median sales price of a home is about $403,200. With $1 trillion, Musk could buy nearly 2.5 million homes at that cost. This gives us an idea of how much wealth he really has and what it could do if invested in real estate rather than companies or other assets.
Fuel supply
Fuel
At current US fuel prices of nearly $4.11 a gallon, Musk's trillion-dollar fortune could buy more than 243 billion gallons of regular fuel. To put that into perspective, it is way more than the nearly 137 billion gallons Americans consumed on finished motor gasoline all last year. The steep oil prices have pushed the national average above $4 a gallon for the first time in four years.
Economic comparison
Countries' GDPs
Musk's wealth also exceeds the annual GDP of South Africa, his birthplace, which is nearly $480 billion. Only about 21 countries in the world have a GDP over the trillion-dollar mark today. The US and China lead with more than $32.38 trillion and $20.85 trillion, respectively, but this still looks smaller than Musk's individual fortune.
Information
Distribution among world population
If Musk's trillion-dollar fortune were distributed among the world's population of nearly 8.2 billion people, each individual would get almost $122. This highlights not only the enormity of his wealth but also its potential impact if it were to be shared equally across the globe.