by Ashley
SpaceX officially went public on Friday, opening at $135, and closed that same day at $160.95/share. The 19% gain was enough to boost Elon Musk into a financial orbit all on his own – he’s officially the world’s first trillionaire!
Most people cannot conceive of how much a trillion is.
I remember when my girls were young, I had a children’s book, How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz. It’s a great book, breaking down the abstract concept of a “million” into units that young minds can comprehend – for instance explaining that a million kids, stacked on each other’s shoulders, would reach the moon! Or that if you counted to a million, it would take about 11 ½ days.
Toward the end of the book (which is mostly about understanding a million), there are a few pages that delve into how much a billion is, and a trillion. I was probably 32 years old at the time of reading this book, and I remember it blowing my mind.
As an example, imagine a number line that ranges from 0 on the low end to a billion on the high end.
0————————————————————————–1 billion
Where would you think 1 million belongs on the number line?
If you’re like most people, you’d place it approximately half-way in-between the two. M marks the spot for where most people would say 1 million lies.
0——————————-M——————————————1 billion
Is this approximately where you would place the million? If so, you’d be off by a little bit. Turns out, the million would be placed nearly on top of the zero. It’s only 1/1,000th of the way to 1 billion. The number line should look more like this:
0M————————————————————————–1 billion
As it turns out, humans are really bad at perceiving these high numbers! We have a hard time conceptualizing 1 million. We really cannot come close to conceiving 1 billion.
And then…there’s 1 trillion.
As I mentioned before, to count to 1 million would take 11 ½ days – that’s if you are counting continuously without sleeping, eating, or stopping. Counting to a billion (at the same rate of speed), would take 31.7 years.
Counting to a trillion?
That would take 31,709 years.
Like I said, we humans are really bad at conceiving of just how large these numbers are. So back to Elon. World’s first trillionaire.
To put that amount of money into perspective, here are some stats. His net worth is larger than the entire national GDPs of Sweden, Ireland, or Taiwan. It’s double the GDP of Musk’s home country, South Africa. His wealth is more than the combined net worth of the next five richest global billionaires put together.
It’s a lot of money. There’s Reddit threads popping up to discuss all the humanitarian and philanthropic things that could be done with that much money. Threads like, “If you became a trillionaire and could end world hunger today, would you?” lead to interesting conversations.
I’m less interested in debating Elon Musk specifically than I am in the question his net worth raises. At what point does wealth become so large that our brains simply stop processing it in a meaningful way?
We talk about millionaires, billionaires, and now trillionaires as if they’re just successive steps on a ladder. But they’re not. The gap between each is almost impossible to comprehend.
So I’m curious: when you hear that someone is worth a trillion dollars, what does that number actually mean to you?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Early 40s, married mother of twins, and working in academia. Currently working toward financial independence with the goal of (hopefully!) retiring early at 50.
