Elon the trillionaire: What Musk’s milestone means for the world
6/16/202616 min
Over the weekend, Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire.
It came after his company, SpaceX, was publicly listed, reaching a valuation of more than two trillion dollars.
Elon’s wealth is now the equivalent of the bottom one-third of the entire globe’s population. It’s more than the entire annual GDP of Belgium, Sweden or Ireland.
But while some are celebrating Musk’s milestone, for others it’s jarring to see in the hands of someone who uses their power for political purposes – and at a time where so many are living with so little.
Today, author of Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire, Carl Rhodes, on what the world’s first trillionaire means for the distribution of power and wealth.
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Guest: Author of Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire, Carl Rhodes
Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsCarl Rhodes· Guest0:00
[gentle music] It's almost unimaginable as a number, right? Let alone as an amount of money. I mean, this is a, a one with 12 zeros, right? It's, it's 1 million millions.
Ruby Jones· Host0:12
Over the weekend, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:16
Trillionaire as SpaceX jumps at the open, well above $2 trillion in terms of market capitalization.
Carl Rhodes· Guest0:22
He's got this 1.1 trillion. A couple of years ago, he only had, only, uh, only had 200 billion. So it's not just that it's a lot of money, it's that his personal wealth has massively increased fivefold, making him by far, far the, the wealthiest person in the world.
Speaker 4· Soundbite0:40
His company, SpaceX, began trading on the NASDAQ today, already raising a whopping $75 billion for its initial public offering. That is the largest IPO in history.
Carl Rhodes· Guest0:51
I mean, it's a whole new category of wealth that we've entered into with this milestone, I guess you could call it.
Ruby Jones· Host0:58
But while some are celebrating Musk's milestone, for others it's jarring to see that much money in the hands of someone who uses their power for political purposes, and at a time when so many are living with so little.
Carl Rhodes· Guest1:11
This is the same total wealth as around the bottom one-third of the entire globe's population. A trillion dollars is more than the entire annual GDP of Belgium, or of Sweden, or of Ireland.
Ruby Jones· Host1:25
[gentle music] I'm Ruby