Tesla

Elon Musk crossed into uncharted territory this year when SpaceX went public, making him the first person ever to hit a trillion dollars in net worth—that's $1,000,000,000,000, or roughly the GDP of entire countries (CNBC). Prediction market traders (people who bet real money on whether future events will happen) think Mark Zuckerberg has the best shot at being number two, with a 32% probability, though his fortune would need to quadruple from its current $200 billion to get there. The betting contracts expire in 2033, so if Zuckerberg doesn't make it by then, these bets simply close out.

While Zuckerberg leads the pack, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sits in second place with a 21% chance to hit a trillion dollars—he's currently worth about $180 billion, meaning he'd also need a roughly five-fold increase (CNBC). Surprisingly, Michael Dell, who's already worth $240 billion more than both Zuckerberg and Huang, has only a 6% chance in the prediction markets, suggesting investors doubt his wealth will grow as rapidly. No other billionaire is given more than a 10% shot at joining the trillionaire club by 2033.

An Oxfam research report from January 2025 predicted that the world could have five trillionaires within a decade, suggesting the betting markets might actually be underestimating how fast billionaire fortunes can grow (CNBC). The math works because tech stocks and SpaceX-type growth can multiply wealth extremely fast—kind of like how $1,000 invested in Tesla 15 years ago would be worth millions today. If Oxfam is right, we're headed for a very strange new world where a handful of people control wealth equivalent to entire nations.