Quadrillion for Musk: $998.9 trillion to reach "King of Space" status
The question of where the boundary of personal wealth lies has been raised once again by Elon Musk. The billionaire, whose fortune is estimated in the tens of billions of dollars, recently responded to public calculations suggesting he is about $998.9 trillion short of the coveted quadrillion. Instead of refuting this figure, Musk called it "quite realistic"—but with one caveat: accumulating such sums on a single planet is impossible.
According to the entrepreneur, the key to such a scale lies not in traditional assets, but in space colonization. He directly stated that achieving such a level would require factories on the Moon and Mars. This is not just a futuristic phrase, but a logical extension of his business strategy: SpaceX has already conducted a record IPO with a valuation of $2 trillion on the Nasdaq, albeit briefly entering the top six most valuable companies in the U.S. Forecasts for SpaceX's revenue in 2030 stand at $1 trillion, although $18.7 billion is planned for 2025.
Mass and Energy Instead of Dollars
Musk also suggested that by the time humanity launches large-scale production beyond Earth, the very concept of money will change. He noted that dollars in their current form will cease to be a currency, giving way to mass and energy. This statement echoes his long-standing ideas about decentralizing resources and abandoning traditional financial instruments in favor of direct exchange of material assets.
Notably, Musk's contract with SpaceX includes a bonus of 200 million shares with enhanced voting rights if a permanent colony of at least one million people is established on Mars. The first crew for a flight around Mars has already been assembled—and it includes a crypto billionaire. This is not just business: it is a direct indication that the upper limit of personal wealth is now set not by the market, but by how far humanity advances in exploring other planets.
Expert opinion: Musk's ideas about replacing fiat money with mass and energy are not just science fiction. In the context of growing interest in decentralized assets and tokenization of real resources, his words could be a signal: the future of finance lies in assets tied to physical quantities, not state currencies. For the crypto community, this is another argument in favor of storing value in scarce, measurable resources.