When Elon Musk crosses the $1 trillion threshold, it will be more than a personal success. It will herald a new phase in economic history in which the influence of individuals rivals that of entire nations.
As a Bitcoiner, I see Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision of decentralized wealth and democratized finance as a blueprint for diffusing power, a way to make value less dependent on specific actors.
But as capital, AI, and policy power Musk’s expanding empire, his rise reveals how far we have strayed from that spirit.
The very concept of “value” may be reestablishing itself, this time not in governments or banks, but in individuals who use technology as a tool.
Some say Bitcoin embodies the purest form of private property: non-forfeitable, borderless, and self-sovereign.
From that perspective, Satoshi may have seen trillionaires not as a failure of decentralization, but as its natural, perhaps unintended, consequence.
Elon’s elaborate payday
As of today, Tesla shareholders approved a compensation package that could increase Elon Musk’s net worth to $1 trillion if the plan’s milestones are met.
More than 75 percent of the votes at Tesla’s Nov. 6 annual meeting supported a multi-year, option-heavy plan that would only pay out if Tesla clears operational and valuation hurdles, including a market capitalization of about $8.5 trillion and the introduction of large-scale autonomous and humanoid robots.
The calculations built into Tesla’s plan set up an unusual comparison. This means that one individual’s equity exposure could potentially exceed the combined market capitalization of the top four altcoins.
How to get to the finish line: wealth, power, and policy
If all of Musk’s tranches vest and are exercised, his effective ownership could be in the mid-20s, subject to dilution and financing.
At $8.5 trillion, with a 27% stake, Tesla alone would be worth about $2.295 trillion. SpaceX’s civilian market valuation is close to $350 billion as of mid-2025, and the published bullish case for defense and broadband will reach trillions of dollars by 2030.
Rumors about xAI’s funding range from $75 billion to $200 billion. The convexity of option grants links personal wealth to small binary outcomes, particularly robotaxis and humanoid robots.
These are both technical and policy-gated. In California, Tesla has a DMV permit for safety driver testing, rather than a driverless test and deployment permit that would allow commercial-scale operations. Separate CPUC approvals will govern the stages of ride-hailing services, according to state records and a Reuters report.
As seen in previous research covered by Ars Technica, NHTSA oversight of fully self-driving capabilities remains a major risk.
Looking ahead to the $1 trillion virtual currency challenge
Currently, Elon Musk’s net worth exceeds the net worth of a single altcoin network. Only Bitcoin has a higher market capitalization of over $2 trillion, so I’m bullish on Bitcoin and believe it will continue to outperform personal portfolios.
The next highest market cap, Ethereum, has fluctuated in recent months between $390 billion and $600 billion, and currently hovers around $400 billion, which is about $100 billion less than Musk’s wealth.
Now let’s do some basic forward modeling.
Under a conservative scenario in which autonomy lags and Optimus remains niche, Tesla’s valuation would reach $3 trillion by 2035, the yield on Musk’s 25% Tesla stock would be around $750 billion, SpaceX would be worth $500 billion, and xAI would be worth $50 billion to $100 billion.
This would bring total assets to about $1.3 trillion to $1.35 trillion, and after accounting for athletic expenses, taxes, and loans, the net worth would be slightly below the $1 trillion mark, but may not exceed it.
By comparison, if Ethereum was valued at $5,000 with 125 million coins, it would have a market cap of approximately $625 billion.
In the base case, Tesla reaches $5 trillion, Optimus starts in factories and energy scales up, so Musk’s Tesla stock is worth about $1.25 trillion to $1.45 trillion, SpaceX is worth $1 trillion, and xAI is worth $200 billion.
This configuration results in a basic net worth of trillions of dollars, whereas Ethereum, even with closer to $10,000 and 120 to 125 million coins, makes ETH worth about $1.2 trillion to $1.25 trillion.
In the bullish case, Tesla reaches a market cap of $8.5 trillion, robotaxis are widely adopted, humanoids ship at scale, SpaceX heads toward a $2.5 trillion market cap, and xAI exceeds $500 billion. Mr. Musk is worth trillions of dollars.
The comparison is not Hero vs. Protocol. These are the optional nature of stocks and the adoption of networks.
| Scenario (2030-2035) | tesla market capitalization | Implicit musk tesla stock | SpaceX/xAI | total assets | plausible net worth | ETH supply | ETH price | ETH market capitalization | Main prerequisites |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| conservative | 3 trillion dollars | ~$750 billion | $500 billion / $5-100 billion | ~$1.3-1.35 trillion | Less than $1 trillion to less than $1.1 trillion | ～125M | $5,000 | ~$625 billion | Robotaxis have limited geography, Optimus niche, and ETF demand is stable |
| base | 5 trillion dollars | ~$1.25-1.45 trillion | $1 trillion / $200 billion | ~$2.45-2.65 trillion | >1 trillion dollars | 120～125M | $10,000 | ~$1.2-1.25 trillion | Monetization through partial autonomy, Optimus in factories, and ETF penetration |
| bull | $8.5 trillion | ~$2.1-2.5 trillion | $2.5 trillion / more than $0.5 trillion | over $5 billion | Trillions | ~120 million | $20,000 | ~$2.4 trillion | Wide range of robotaxis, humanoid scales, and crypto supercycles |
So for Ethereum to overtake Mr. Musk within the next decade and reach a $1 trillion valuation first, ETH would need to break above $10,000, assuming Tesla’s market cap remains below $3 trillion.
Billionaire influence and the politics of wealth
However, I believe that the social framework surrounding these numbers is also important.
Admiration of the super-rich and associated beliefs in justifying meritocracy and institutions reduce support for redistribution and progressive taxation that includes low-income groups, according to research published through Cambridge University Press.
Long-term research in political science shows that policy outcomes are more responsive to the preferences of wealthy individuals than to those of the average citizen, and that extreme concentration can lead to sustained political influence.
In parallel, research in economics has found that contact with wealthier peers reduces life satisfaction, increases conspicuous consumption and borrowing, and has a significant impact on the lower end of the distribution, as noted in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and related research.
A 2024 Harris poll found that a majority said billionaires do not contribute enough to society, and a British poll found widespread concern about the political influence of the super-wealthy.
These are not the abstract vibes that surround celebrities. These are the channels through which billionaire glamor and media narratives feed back into budgets, ballots, and debt.
Larger context helps find ethics.
According to Forbes magazine, the number of billionaires will reach a record high of 3,028 out of the world’s population of 8.23 billion in 2025. This means approximately 1 in 2.7 million people.
There are no millionaires today. UBS estimates global household wealth at $450 trillion. $1 trillion is about 0.22 percent of that total. The global median adult wealth is in the low thousands of dollars, with more than 80% of adults owning less than $100,000, according to UBS data compiled by Reuters.
$1 trillion in personal wealth represents the entire net worth of approximately 100 million to 130 million median adults. The base interest rate for those transitioning from millionaire to billionaire is vanishingly low. Treating 1 trillion as an aspirational national goal is numerically inconsistent.
Policy choices are a factor in fluctuations near the tail. Status quo rules will further complicate top-end properties and, given the documented tilt in policy responsiveness, affordability issues tend to take a back seat.
As modeled by Zakman, cited by Oxfam, and reported by the Washington Post, a targeted 2% annual tax on billionaires’ wealth could raise about $250 billion a year, modestly cutting costs while funding public goods and cost-of-living relief.
The cultural shift from great man stories to systematic explanations of progress has led to increased support for progressive taxation in experimental settings and modest restraints on the spread of billionaire worship.
Policies and public perceptions shape the $1 trillion race
None of these actions will independently change Tesla’s valuation calculation or the crypto demand curve. They condition the environment in which extreme luck is placed.
There is also a governance perspective within Tesla. The shareholders as well as the board set a price on the option convexity and approved it. This answers one criticism and at the same time generates another.
If the state’s permitting and safety agencies effectively control the autonomous cash flows that support this plan, public oversight would be placed upstream of the options for trillions of dollars worth of private assets.
Tesla still needs robotaxi-scale driverless testing and deployment approval in major markets, and NHTSA review remains active, according to Reuters and California DMV records. Whether a package is converted or not depends on a calendar of those decisions, not press events.
You don’t have to cheer or boo Musk to clearly see the comparison.
Whether the financial network reaches 1 trillion or 2 trillion depends on adoption, throughput, and flows. In contrast, founders rely on limited technological and regulatory unlocks to achieve 1 trillion+ assets.
We can celebrate execution and engineering without celebrating a culture of billionaire worship that dampens support for redistribution and increases elite influence over policy. The calculation is clear and the worship is optional.
At the end of the day, whether it’s humans or networks that reach $1 trillion first, the bigger question is: What kinds of systems do we want to power? Is it a system built by individual ambition or by collective adoption?