Musk Becomes First Trillionaire, Rivals Lag Far Behind

Washington (ANTARA) - The world is unlikely to witness a new dollar trillionaire in the near future after SpaceX CEO Elon Musk became the first person to cross the threshold of $1 trillion in personal wealth.

“We may have to wait a very long time before anyone else becomes a trillionaire,” said Jay Ritter, a Professor of Finance at the University of Florida, to RIA Novotni on Wednesday.

He added that there is currently no data indicating that anyone else possesses wealth significantly above $300 billion.

The world’s seven richest individuals are currently mostly founders of American technology companies.

Ritter cited Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who has donated a large portion of his wealth, resulting in him no longer being among the top seven.

He also emphasised that wealth rankings only calculate the market value of the shares held by billionaires, without accounting for tax liabilities. For instance, if Jeff Bezos were to sell all his Amazon shares, he would still have to pay taxes that would reduce his net wealth.

Musk officially became the first trillionaire in history after SpaceX and his artificial intelligence companies went public on 12 June. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index data as of Wednesday, Musk’s wealth has increased by $391 billion this year to reach $1.01 trillion.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin occupy second and third place, with wealths of $301 billion and $280 billion respectively. Jeff Bezos sits in fourth place with $262 billion, followed by Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell in fifth with $217 billion. Larry Ellison, one of the founders of Oracle, dropped to sixth position after his wealth decreased to $202 billion.