MARCH 28, 2025
SpaceX and NASA Launch First Astronauts to Space in Cape Canaveral, US – 30 May 2020. – Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
With a net worth estimated at roughly $419.9 billion USD, Elon Musk is not only one of the wealthiest people on the planet, but also one of the most polarizing. He ranks ahead of other big-name billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.
But how did he make such a massive fortune, and how does it compare to what everyday people can expect to earn in their lifetimes? Let’s break down the numbers.
Elon Musk vs. The Everyday Person
It’s no secret that short of finding a magic lamp or concocting a world-changing invention (or at least getting in on the ground floor of investing in one), it’s virtually impossible to amass a fortune as large as Musk’s.
To explain it in more tangible terms, if you’re making the average income in the United States — about $55,000 annually — it would take you about 7.6 million years to earn as much as Musk has now.
If that information has your eyelid twitching, consider this: 7.6 million years is roughly the amount of time that has passed since the very first hominins — our most distant, bipedal ancestors — began to emerge.
Elon Musk vs. The Average Household
The median household income in the United States is about $80,000. When you compare that to Musk’s net worth, the results are jaw-dropping. Musk’s fortune is 5,237,500 times greater than the average American household’s annual income.
To put that into perspective, think about it in terms of steps. If you took 80,000 steps, you’d cover about 38 miles — roughly the distance of a scenic drive from Manhattan to Stamford, Connecticut. But if you took 419.9 billion steps, i.e., the number of steps it would take to match Musk’s net worth, you’d traverse 198.8 million miles. That’s enough to walk from Earth to Mars and back more than 400 times.
Well, Musk did say he wants to send humans to Mars.
Elon Musk vs. Lifetime Income
If the average American can expect to earn about $1.7 million in their lifetime, they can expect to fall well short of Musk’s billions. Just how short? Musk’s net worth is about 246,471 times greater than the average American’s lifetime earnings of $1.7 million.
That means Musk’s fortune equals the combined lifetime earnings of about 246,471 people.
These statistics are eye-popping, raising hard questions about the widening gulf between the elite and the average American household.
Courtesy/Source: This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates
