Elon Musk on target to become world's first trillionaire

The world’s richest person has $237 billion as of today (September 9) according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index and to call that level of wealth ‘sufficient’ would be an understatement.

But it could soon seem paltry compared to what could be ahead for Elon Musk according to a new report that looks at people and firms that are – or are about to be – worth a cool trillion dollars.

The 2024 Trillion Dollar Club includes seven companies that are worth at least $1 trillion as of July 2024:

1. Microsoft ($3.4 trillion)
2. Apple ($3.3 trillion)
3. Nvidia ($3 trillion)
4. Alphabet ($2.3 trillion)
5. Amazon ($2 trillion)
6. Saudi Aramco ($1.8 trillion)
7. Meta ($1.3 trillion)

But there are also several that are likely to join them, according to the analysis from Informa Connect Academy: Taiwan-based TSMC, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Eli Lilly, Broadcom, and Tesla. Berkshire Hathaway recently became the first firm outside the tech sector to reach $1 trillion market cap before slipping back.

For Tesla, the report notes an “impressive growth rate, estimated to be growing annually at an average rate of 173.32%, means it should exceed $1 trillion in 2025” from its current market cap of $669 billion.

While Musk only owns around 13% of Tesla stock, he has other holdings and investments including Space X which account for a large chunk of his wealth. With Informa Connect Academy’s estimate that his net worth is growing at more than 109% annually, the report estimates that he will become the world’s first trillionaire in 2027.

If all things remain equal, Musk will be in a club of one for just one year before Indian entrepreneur Gautam Adani, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Indonesian entrepreneur Prajogo Pangestu join him.

By the end of the decade the Trillion Dollar Club’s members will also include luxury fashion magnates Bernard Arnault and his family, and Nike’s Phil Knight and his family, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. They will be joined by the likes of Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Google), and Warren Buffett within the following 15 years.

The world’s first trillionaire woman will (by current projections) by Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, granddaughter of the founder of L’Oreal. Her and her family have a current net worth just below $100 billion and are estimated to join the Trillion Dollar Club in 2040.