It’s A (Rich) Man’s World

The news arrived with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for moon landings, scientific breakthroughs or the end of wars. Elon Musk, already the wealthiest man in modern history, has reportedly become the world’s first trillionaire, with an estimated net worth exceeding $1 trillion following SpaceX’s public listing. The figure is almost impossible to comprehend: $1,000,000,000,000. A number so large that it ceases to have any real meaning to most people.
To put it in perspective, Musk’s personal fortune is now larger than the annual economic output of many countries. It exceeds the GDP of dozens of nations and dwarfs the national budgets of countries struggling to provide basic healthc...