9 September 2024 10:48 am Views - 1347
Sky News - Elon Musk is on track to become the world's first trillionaire by 2027, according to a new global wealth report.
Musk, 53, is currently the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $251bn (£191bn), according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.
However, according to Informa Connect Academy's findings, his wealth has been growing at an average rate of 110% a year.
It means that - providing his wealth continues to grow at the same rate - he could reach the trillionaire mark within the next three years, according to the findings.
The same report - the 2024 Trillion Dollar Club - puts Musk's electric car business Tesla at a market value of $669.3bn (£509.7bn).
Its growth rate is also exceedingly high - 173.3% per year according to Informa Connect Academy - which means the business alone could exceed $1tn (£0.76tn) by next year.
Unsurprisingly, the top two richest companies valued by the growth report were Microsoft ($3.4tn or £2.6tn) and Apple ($3.3tn or £2.5tn).
The two tech giants reached the trillion-dollar mark in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
With an annual growth rate of 123%, he is said to reach the milestone by 2028.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of tech firm Nvidia, and Indonesian energy and mining mogul Prajogo Pangestu are also predicted to become trillionaires by 2028, according to their current trajectories.
Musk's other businesses include spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX, neurotechnology firm Neuralink, and The Boring Company - formerly a subsidiary of SpaceX but now its own tunnel construction company.
Since the multi-billionaire bought Twitter for around $44bn (£33.5bn) in late-2022, soon rebranding it X, he has repeatedly caused controversy, including apologising for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Most recently, a feud with Brazil's Supreme Court has seen X banned in the country.
This week, Musk posted on his X account to say that a Tucker Carlson interview with podcaster Darryl Cooper was "very interesting" and "worth watching".
In the interview, Cooper, another right-wing media figure, made false claims about the Holocaust, saying the Nazis didn't intend to murder so many people and instead suggested they didn't have the resources to care for them.
The White House condemned the interview, describing the comments as "disgusting" and a "sadistic insult to all Americans" and "to the memory of the over six million Jews who were genocidally murdered by Adolf Hitler".
Musk later deleted the post.
He has also taken issue with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, branding him "Two Tier Keir" during the recent UK riots and accusing him of endorsing so-called "two-tier policing".
Sir Keir responded by criticising "social media companies and those who run them" of "whipping up violent disorder online".