WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 30: Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Musk, who served as an adviser to Trump and led the Department of Government Efficiency, announced he would leave his role in the Trump administration to refocus on his businesses. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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How much could $722 billion buy?
Elon Musk currently sits atop Forbes real-time list as the world’s richest person by far — with a net worth more than double Alphabet cofounder Larry Page, who is in second place.
With numbers this big, buying a few yachts, a private island, or even a professional sports team no longer provides meaningful context. It’s time to think bigger.
While Musk’s fortune is not liquid cash – it is largely tied to equity ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX – the valuation is volatile, stock-market-dependent, and could diminish greatly if a financial collapse were to occur.
With that, let’s zoom out and ask the question, What could the world’s richest person theoretically buy if his paper fortune were converted into purchasing power in our economy?
I broke down real estate empires, overall industries, and global institutions—along with a few tongue-in-cheek “why not?” scenarios to help put Mr. Musk’s unprecedented wealth into perspective.
1 – He Could Buy Entire Regions Of America
Let’s start with real estate. At current estimates, Musk’s net worth could buy every single residential property in San Diego County, considered one of the most desirable housing markets in the U.S.
Stretch that idea further, and you could theoretically buy every home in the state of Hawaii—all 572,781 households—based on average Zillow valuations. Or even more striking: $716 billion is enough to buy every residential property in the entire state of Maryland – suburbs, cities, coastlines, and all.
A souvrnir postcard for Hawaii shows an illustration of two native Hawaiian men in red swim trunks at Waikiki. One of the men is surfing while the other stands on the beach with his surfboard, 1910. (Jim Heimann Collection/Getty Images)
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2 – He Could Buy Every New Car Sold In America Over An Entire Year
In 2025, Americans bought tens of millions of new vehicles. Collectively, their sticker prices still add up to less than Musk’s net worth. (Although it would likely be a terrible investment.) Cars depreciate the moment they leave the lot—but in fact, one individual could theoretically buy every single new car sold in the U.S.
3 – He Could Buy Elite Education—Multiple Times Over
The collective endowments of the entire Ivy League—Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Penn—total roughly $200 billion. Musk could buy all three of them three times over, with money left to spare.
You can’t put a price on education, of course.
Vintage illustration of the University of Pennsylvania in 1765, from a series of prints of American historical colleges; lithograph, 1920. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)
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4 – He Could (Almost) Buy Switzerland (On Paper, At Least)
While you can’t technically buy a sovereign nation, though comparisons are still revealing. Switzerland’s annual GDP clocks in just under $900 billion. Musk’s fortune comes surprisingly close to matching the yearly output of one of the world’s richest, most stable economies.
A Swiss flag flutters on March 4, 2018 in Crans-Montana above the Rhone valley in the Swiss canton of Valais (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
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5 – He Could Buy Big Oil
ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips—the three largest American oil companies—together still fall within Musk’s theoretical buying power. The irony here: the world’s most prominent electric-vehicle evangelist could, on paper, buy the pillars of the internal combustion economy outright. It would be a dramatic ideological pivot – or the ultimate hedge.
CULVER CITY, CA – APRIL 25: Oil rigs extract petroleum in the Los Angeles area community of Culver City, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)
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6 – He Could Buy Every Major U.S. Sports League
Professional sports offer another useful benchmark. Based on current team valuations, the leagues are valued at:
- MLB: $73.66 billion
- NBA: $135.50 billion
- NFL: $181.95 billion
- NHL: $42.46 billion
Totaling: $433.57 billion
Musk could buy every single team in all four major North American sports leagues and still have roughly $280 billion left over (to buy the Ivy League!)
TAMPA, FL – OCTOBER 12: An NFL logo as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the Carolina Panthers at Raymond James Stadium on October 12, 2008 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
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The Takeaway
Elon Musk has crossed every modern wealth milestone: $300 billion, $400 billion, $500 billion, $600 billion—and now he is north of $700 billion. No individual in modern history has accumulated comparable nominal wealth so quickly, so publicly, or so visibly.
The question isn’t whether Musk would—or even could—buy these things. He likely would not. But when one person’s net worth can be meaningfully compared to states, industries, institutions, and nations, we’re no longer just talking about personal success. We’re talking about a new era of economic scale, and if it continues, this type of wealth will eventually have a greater hand in shaping government policy, labor, and power.
But perhaps the real question is, with the advancement of Tesla’s Optimus AI robots, is this just the beginning?
