Musk is on the threshold of becoming the world's first trillionaire, and the scale of his wealth is so huge that it is difficult for ordinary people to understand intuitively.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on the 2nd, Musk’s current net worth is approximately US$970 billion, most of which is held in the form of equity. Once SpaceX's IPO is launched, this number will most likely exceed the trillion-dollar mark. Calculating his 31-year entrepreneurial career, this means that he accumulates an average of $992 in wealth per second and earns $3.6 million per hour.

This amount of wealth exceeds the annual GDP of more than 125 countries around the world, including Norway, Thailand, Argentina and South Africa - where Musk was born, with an annual GDP of approximately $480 billion. As a proportion of U.S. GDP, Musk's wealth is equivalent to about 3% of U.S. GDP, easily surpassing John D. Rockefeller, the richest figure in U.S. history.

Wealth composition: 90% locked in equity

According to analysis by the Wall Street Journal, the largest single item of Musk’s US$970 billion wealth comes from SpaceX’s pre-IPO equity, valued at approximately US$538 billion; Tesla holds approximately US$167 billion; the two companies’ stock options total approximately US$150 billion, exercisable at any time. In addition, driverless tunnel company The Boring Company and brain-computer interface company Neuralink are each valued at about $5 billion, and real estate, aircraft and other investment assets are about $104 billion, according to estimates by wealth intelligence agency Altrata.

This means that the vast majority of Musk's wealth exists in the form of paper assets and is not readily available cash. He can borrow against his SpaceX and Tesla holdings, but liquidity remains limited. Musk himself publicly stated in 2020 that he "does not hold any real estate" and sold multiple properties in California, but has since purchased properties in Texas.

Time Dimension: The average American family needs to work for 11 million years

To make this number more concrete, link Musk’s wealth to the time dimension: In the 31 years since he co-founded the first U.S. technology company in 1995, he has accumulated an average of about $59,500 per minute, about $85.7 million per day, and about $31.3 billion per year.

Based on the U.S. median household income of $83,730 in 2024, an average American family would need to work for more than 11 million years to accumulate wealth equivalent to Musk.

Philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns once wrote that the wealth growth rate of the world's richest people has far exceeded the cognitive boundaries of ordinary people. She estimated that if Musk worked 70 hours a week without taking vacations until he was 75, his career hourly earnings would be about $4.2 million. Musk is known for his intense work schedule - after acquiring Twitter, he said his work week jumped from about 80 hours to more than 120 hours.

Purchasing Power Imagination: From 2.4 Million Homes to an Entire NFL Team

Using a series of concrete scenarios, the purchasing power of 970 billion US dollars is presented: this amount of money can buy about 2.4 million ordinary American homes; or buy all 32 NFL teams and all NBA teams, with more than 500 billion US dollars left; or build a fleet of more than 10,000 Gulfstream G700 private jets and pay for five years of operating costs (including fuel); or acquire them at the same time Accenture, FedEx, Home Depot, UPS, Target, Kroger, Starbucks, CVS Health, Albertsons, Cracker Barrel and Campbell’s, collectively employ more than 4 million people.

Historical coordinates: surpassing Rockefeller and rivaling the giants of the industrial era

Measured by the ratio of wealth to GDP, Musk has surpassed Rockefeller, recognized as the richest figure in American history. Rockefeller’s wealth in 1937 was about $1.4 billion, or about 1.5% of U.S. GDP at the time; Musk’s wealth is about 3% of current U.S. GDP, twice that.

Rockefeller relied on the wave of industrialization to build Standard Oil into a monopoly giant, which was eventually forced to be broken up by the federal government. Musk’s wealth is built on three tracks: electric vehicles, commercial aerospace and artificial intelligence. In addition, the success of Tesla and SpaceX has also generated billions of dollars in returns for investors who bet on Musk and created a large number of employee millionaires.