Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world, and last year succeeded former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with the title. While Musk has repeatedly said that material possessions are not his concern and eventually sold almost all of his personal property as evidence, a new study by Tipalti Approve suggests that Musk could be the first to accumulate a $1 trillion net worth, and could do so as early as 2024.
Musk
According to Forbes' list of real-time billionaires, Musk has a net worth of more than $260 billion, nearly $70 billion more than Bezos currently estimates at about $190 billion. Musk's fortune has skyrocketed over the past few years, thanks to his majority stake in electric car company Tesla, whose value has begun to grow significantly since 2020. SpaceX also helped Musk's net worth soar and could catalyze more growth over the next two years.
"Musk's wealth has grown by an average of 129 percent a year since 2017, which could get him into the trillion-dollar club in just two years, reaching a net worth of $1.38 trillion by 2024 at age 52," Approve said in their report. "SpaceX generates huge revenues by charging government and commercial customers for sending everything into space, including satellites, supplies to the International Space Station, and personnel."
Zhang Yiming
Other billionaires are also expected to reach trillions of dollars, but after Musk. Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok, expects to be worth $1 trillion by 2026 at the age of 42, becoming the youngest trillionaire. Bezos may not reach the threshold until 2030. "A few years ago people expected Bezos to become the world's first billionaire, and now it's not expected to join the club until 2030, about six years later than Musk."