Elon Musk is projected to become the World’s First Trillionaire in 2024
Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world, taking over former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last year to claim the title. While Musk has stated many times that material possessions are not a concern of his, eventually selling nearly all of his personal properties as proof, a new study from Tipalti Approve suggests Musk could become the first person to ever accumulate a $1 trillion net worth, and it could happen as soon as 2024.
Musk’s net worth, according to Forbes’ Real Time Billionaires list, sits at over $260 billion, nearly $70 billion more than Bezos’ current estimation of about $190 billion. Musk’s wealth skyrocketed over the past few years thanks to his majority ownership of his electric car company Tesla, which increased in value substantially since 2020. SpaceX also has helped Musk’s net worth skyrocket and could catalyze even more growth in the next two years.
“Since 2017, Musk’s fortune has shown an annual average increase of 129%, which could potentially see him enter the trillion-dollar club in just two short years, achieving a net worth of $1.38 trillion by 2024 at age 52,” Approve said in their report, via Yahoo Finance. “SpaceX generates massive incomes by charging governmental and commercial clients to send various things into space, including satellites, ISS supplies, and people.”
Other billionaires also are expected to hit the trillion-dollar range, but not before Musk. Zhang Yiming, TikTok’s founder, is projected to reach a $1 trillion net worth by 2026 at 42 years old, making him the youngest trillionaire. Bezos may not hit the threshold until 2030. Bezos broke ground in the net worth realm by reaching $100 billion before any other entrepreneur in the world. “In 2017, e-commerce and global procurement giant Jeff Bezos was the first to reach $100 billion since Bill Gates back in 1999,” Approve’s report said. “It was Bezos, not Musk, who a few years ago was expected to become the world’s first trillionaire, and who now isn’t expected to join the club until 2030, some six years after Musk.”
Of course, inflation has affected the calculation of the world’s richest people for many decades. Interestingly, the report suggests Mansa Musa I of the Mali Empire, who is widely regarded as the richest man to ever live, would have a net worth well over anyone currently. Musa oversaw a kingdom that, at one point in time, accounted for nearly 50 percent of the world’s gold. Some estimates place his net worth at $400 billion, although the figure has been challenged by many historians.