What could Elon Musk buy with $1 trillion? Endless possibilities as Tesla CEO secures historic pay package

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has secured his dream $1 trillion pay package from the electric vehicle (EV) maker, and more than 75% of shareholders support the move.

Even though it is historical, Musk’s $1 trillion salary package with 12 zeros in it is difficult for the human mind to understand.

To make things easier and highlight what kind of immense wealth we’re talking about here, we’ll tell you some of the things Musk could theoretically buy (for lack of a better word) with his new salary package.

All national economies (in theory)

As far as we know, countries cannot be ‘bought’, but Elon Musk can buy large economies with his new package GDP below $1 trillion.

To put this in perspective, Musk could buy Switzerland, which has a GDP of $936.56 billion, with spare cash.

Alternatively, if the Tesla CEO has a desire to ‘own’ more than one country, he could go slightly over budget and buy Singapore ($547.39 billion) and Israel ($540.38 billion).

Needless to say, his options here are numerous: Not many countries have GDPs above $1 trillion, and the Tesla CEO could theoretically buy any of these economies if he wished.

If Musk is willing to go a few hundred billion dollars over budget, he could also buy the Netherlands ($1.23 trillion) or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ($1.24 trillion).

A big technology stack

Musk’s salary package may not be enough to buy chipmaker Nvidia, which recently reached $5 trillion in value, or consumer electronics giant Apple and search giant Google; But that doesn’t mean the Tesla CEO’s options are limited.

Musk, who has already made a high-profile acquisition by purchasing Twitter, can use his new wealth to buy all major technology companies such as Oracle, Tencent Holdings, Samsung Electronics, Alibaba Group, Palantir Technologies, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), IBM, Uber and Qualcomm.

In fact, Musk could buy several of these companies and still have spare cash.

In every major sports league

Have you ever wondered what the collective rating of the world’s major sports leagues is? Apparently they pale in comparison to Musk’s pay packet.

The four major U.S. sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL) and their 124 teams have a valuation of roughly $510 billion; This is slightly more than half of the amount to be paid to Musk.

If we also take into account Europe’s top five football leagues (English Premier League (EPL), La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1) and their 96 teams, this adds roughly another $193 billion.

So if Elon Musk bought every single team in these leagues, that figure would still be around $700 billion. The Tesla CEO would still be sitting on $300 billion worth of spare cash while owning every team in those leagues.

For good measure, we can also throw in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and buying 10 teams in the IPL would only $2.5 billion is insignificant To Musk’s total bill.

A self-sufficient Mars colony

Will Musk be able to finance humanity’s quest to become a multi-planet civilization with his new salary package?

While this isn’t a simple answer (due to difficulties in estimating the total amount of money needed to establish a self-sustaining colony), Musk can cover a large portion of the necessary startup costs.

Remember, we’re talking about space travel on a large scale here, the stuff in science fiction movies, so let’s get into it.

Musk has previously stated that a colony on Mars would require carrying at least one million tons of cargo.

Assuming SpaceX manages to hit its target cost of $100,000 per ton, that would bring initial shipping costs to about $100 billion, a tenth of Musk’s new pay package.

After this initial setup, it will be much more expensive to establish a self-sustaining city with a population of more than one million; According to estimates, this amount will be around 1 trillion dollars. The upper limit is 10 trillion dollars.

However, this won’t be a one-time payment: Musk has previously argued the cost would be spread out over 40 or more years, requiring an annual investment of $25 billion for a total of $1 trillion.

But NASA estimates show the cost approximately 600 billion dollarsThis was something Musk could easily afford with the space available.

Hollywood notables

Hollywood movies generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, but how much would it cost to own all the major studios in Tinseltown?

It turns out A LOT: the ‘big five’ Hollywood studios, namely Walt Disney ($210.72bn), Sony ($168.52bn), Universal Studios owner Comcast ($123.47bn), Warner Bros Discovery ($55.50bn) and Paramount Global ($16.22bn), have valuations that put them beyond the reach of many of the world’s billionaires.

But not for Musk: Even if the Tesla CEO buys all these studios in his own name current valuationsThis will cost it $574.43 billion, leaving over $400 billion in spare cash.

With this spare cash and a little extra, Musk could also buy streaming giant Netflix, which is worth about $465 billion.

crypto market

While it’s not possible to buy the entire market, or even a single currency, the fact that Elon Musk’s newly approved payout is about a third the size of the entire cryptocurrency market should provide some perspective on just how massive $1 trillion is.

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization currently stands at around $3.4 trillion, which is only 3.4 times Musk’s salary package.

Bitcoin accounts for about $2 trillion of this, meaning Musk could theoretically capture half of all Bitcoins on the market.

Alternatively, Musk could buy the major competition with spare cash, with Ethereum, Tether, XRP and BNB valued at $849.2 billion combined.

Every house in San Diego

Yes. You read that right.

The San Diego metropolitan area in California, also referred to as San Diego County, recently joined the ‘$1 trillion housing market club’.

At this valuation, Musk could easily buy every single house, condo, apartment, or townhouse in the area with his new salary package and still keep his current fortune ($461 billion) to enjoy the spoils.

rule the sky

If real estate wasn’t attractive enough, Musk could also buy every major global airline and still keep most of his paycheck.

If Musk were to buy the world’s 10 largest airlines by market value: Delta Air Lines ($39.0 billion), United Airlines Holdings ($32.0 billion), Ryanair ($30.6 billion), InterGlobe Aviation (IndiGo) ($25.2 billion), International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) ($23.9 billion), Air China ($17.3 billion), Southwest Airlines ($17.0 billion), Singapore Airlines ($15.2 billion), China Southern Airlines ($14.2 billion), Turkish Airlines ($12.3 billion) – will need to spend a paltry $231.7 billion in total, leaving over $700 billion on hand for other expenses.

A private, nuclear-powered navy

The US Navy’s newest nuclear-powered Gerald R Ford aircraft carriers cost about $13 billion each, and Musk could build a private navy of 76 such ships for $12 billion if he wanted.

Of course, there are currently one such carrier, and the Pentagon has planned a maximum of 10, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Tesla CEO could theoretically have a fleet of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers much larger than that of the US Navy, 11 of which are in active service.

gaming industry

It’s not hard to imagine Musk, a gamer himself, purchasing major video game companies.

Although Xbox owner Microsoft remains out of the Tesla CEO’s reach with its current pay package, Musk could easily acquire other major video game studios, including but not limited to Tencent ($747.35 billion), PlayStation owner Sony ($169.93 billion), Switch owner Nintendo ($107.67 billion), sports gaming giant Electronic Arts ($49.98 billion) and Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise owners Take Two Interactive. ($46.56 billion).

Acquiring these companies would cost Musk approximately $363.79 billion, leaving the Tesla CEO with approximately $700 billion for other pursuits.