Trillionaire Definition: How Much Money Is That, and Who Will Be First?

Who is called a Trillionaire?

If a person has a net worth of at least one trillion dollars or an amount equal in another currency with a comparable value, such as the euro or the British pound, they are regarded as a trillionaires. No one has yet declared themselves a trillionaire, even though some of the world's richest individuals are years away from reaching this milestone.

The numerical equivalent of one trillion is 1,000,000,000,000. We can also write it as 10¹². It is difficult to raise such a huge amount. If someone becomes a trillionaire, he/ she can give $140 to each and every person on this planet.

How much is one trillion dollars?

$1 trillion is simply equivalent to $1,000 billion, which is then equal to $1000000 million (or 1 million million). It would take 67.9 miles to stack one billion dollars.

It might be challenging to put $1 trillion into context because it is such a huge amount. In the initial place, the World Bank estimates that it is comparable to the gross domestic products of several nations. This comprises Brazil ($1.6 trillion GDP), Australia ($1.5 trillion), Indonesia ($1.1 trillion), and Brazil ($1.6 trillion GDP).

Despite the fact that several nations have GDPs in terms of trillions of dollars, a few highly industrialized nations nonetheless fall short of the trillion-dollar threshold.

How is net worth calculated?

Business ventures, investments, real estate holdings, cash, and personal property are just a few of the many ways from which extremely wealthy persons obtain their money. Totaling all of those assets and then subtracting liabilities (including mortgages and personal loans) can help you determine the net worth of the respective person. A person is considered a trillionaire if they have at least $1 trillion in net worth (or 1 trillion euros).

In the highest echelons of wealth, calculating one's exact net worth is typically a difficult task. For instance, a business's overall value might change drastically from one day to the next, whereas the value of other assets, such as cash, is often more constant.

The "Real-Time Billionaires List" is updated every minute and is maintained by Forbes, which creates the official list of the world's wealthiest people. Elon Musk ($229.8 billion), Bernard Arnault & family ($220.3 billion), and Jeff Bezos ($162.3 billion) are in the top three positions as of August 9, 2023, at 18:08. In positions four and five, Larry Ellison and Warren Buffett are behind them having net worths of $144.5 billion and $121.8 billion respectively.

Who will be the first person in the world to earn one trillion dollars?

It would seem like a long way off for even billionaires like Musk and Bezos, who have $229 billion and $220 billion, respectively, in their accounts, to become trillionaires. Given how quickly some of the wealthiest people in the world have been able to acquire fortunes, it might only be a matter of years until someone achieves that rank.

For instance, Arnault was successful in increasing his net worth from $29 billion in 2013 to $185 billion in 2021, or by over six times. If he gets similar success again, he will become a trillionaire by the end of the decade.

In addition to his ownership of Amazon, Bezos has witnessed significant growth in fortune; now, he also owns 'The Washington Post' and the aerospace firm 'Blue Origin'. According to Forbes, Bezos' net worth has climbed by approximately two and a half times, from an estimated $67 billion in 2017 to $177 billion now.

Musk, whose wealth was built on industry-changing businesses like Tesla for electric vehicles and SpaceX for commercial rockets, may have the best chance of becoming a trillionaire. In 2017, only five years previous, the unidentified businessman's estimated net worth was $13.9 billion. By 2024, it is projected that he will have a net worth of $264 billion. He might become a trillionaire soon if those enterprises maintain their current price trajectory.

Top 5 World's Richest Billionaires 2023

Although there are currently no trillionaires, the top five richest billionaires worldwide who may eventually become trillionaires are listed below:

1. Elon Musk (Net Worth: $229 Billion)

Elon Reeves Musk FRS was born on June 28th, 1971. He is a rich businessman and an entrepreneur. In Tesla, a manufacturer of electric automobiles, he is the CEO and one of the business's first significant owners (shareholder).

The rocket manufacturer SpaceX, the entrepreneur Boring Corporation, and the maker of electric vehicles Tesla are just a few of the six companies that Elon Musk co-founded.

His ownership stake in Tesla, when shares and options are added up, is around 25%, but he has pledged more than 50% of that stake as collateral for loans. After only a single funding deal in May 2022, SpaceX, which was founded in 2002 and has already quadrupled in value in only three years, was valued at $127 billion. The Boring Corporation, which aims to get rid of traffic, obtained $675 million in April 2022 at a value of $5.7 billion.

Musk announced a 9.1% stake in Twitter and began a takeover bid, leading the company's management to decide to sell the company to him in April 2022 for $44 billion.

2. Bernard Arnault (Net Worth: $220 Billion)

The chairman of LVMH (Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA), the largest luxury goods corporation in the world, is Bernard Arnault, a French businessman born in Roubaix, France, on March 5, 1949. He is regarded as the company's president and CEO.

At the LVMH group, Bernard Arnault is in charge of 70 other fashion and beauty companies, in addition to Louis Vuitton and Sephora. In January 2021, LVMH paid $15.8 billion to purchase Tiffany & Co., making it the most expensive business transaction in the company's history.

LVMH purchased Belmond in 2019 for $3.2 billion. Belmond is a high-end lodging provider that owns or manages 46 resorts, trains, and river excursions.

Arnault got his start by spending $15 million from his father's business in 1985 in the purchase of Christian Dior. His father had established a small fortune in the construction sector. Four of the five children of Arnault, who include Frédéric, Delphine, Antoine, and Alexandre, work for different departments within the LVMH company.

3. Jeff Bezos (Net Worth: $162 Billion)

Jeffrey Preston Bezos, an American media magnate, businessman, inventor, software developer, and commercial astronaut, was born on January 12, 1964. He is the owner, executive chairman, former CEO, and director of the different businesses, with Amazon being the leading one.

The massive online retailer Amazon was established in 1994 by Seattle native Jeff Bezos in his basement. In order to become executive chairman, he gave up his post as CEO in July 2021.

At the moment, he has less than 10% of the business. Bezos handed over his wife MacKenzie a fourth of his then-16% ownership of Amazon when they divorced in 2019 after 25 years of marriage. It is unknown which charities received the more than $400 million in shares that Bezos donated in 2022.

In addition to founding "The Washington Post" and "Blue Origin", a business that creates rockets, Bezos made a short journey in the field of space in July 2021.

4. Larry Ellison (Net Worth: $145 Billion)

A 19-year-old single woman gave birth to Larry Ellison in New York City. In 1966, Ellison graduated from the University of Chicago. He then moved to California and worked as a computer programmer. He started working for the electronics company Ampex in 1973 when he met future business partners Ed Oates and Bob Miner. After three years, Ellison was assigned the new position of vice president of research and development at Precision Instruments.

A new company named Software Development Laboratories (SDL) was established in 1977 by Ellison, Oates, and Miner. Two years later, the company introduced Oracle, the first relational database system for commercial usage that made use of Structured Query Language. Eventually, SDL became Oracle Systems Corporation in 1982 as a result of the database program's popularity. Ellison stepped down as CEO of Oracle in 2014 after 37 years in the post. From December 2018 until June 2022, he served on the Tesla board.

The second-largest software company in the world, Oracle provides a variety of cloud computing apps, Java and Linux source code, as well as the Oracle Exadata computing platform. Sun Microsystems and Cerner are just two of the many significant businesses that Oracle has purchased over the years.

On medical research, Ellison has concentrated his philanthropic efforts. He donated $200 million in 2016 to a brand-new cancer research facility at the University of Southern California. Oracle Team USA won the America's Cup racing series in 2010 and 2013 because of Ellison's support.

5. Warren Buffett (Net Worth: $122 Billion)

The most well-known living value investor, Warren Buffett, reported income from a paper route he had operated as a youngster on his first tax return in 1944 when he was just 14 years old. He made his first investment in the textile firm Berkshire Hathaway in 1962, and by 1965, he owned the majority of the shares in the company. In 1967, Buffett added stakes in insurance and other sectors to the company's portfolio.

Buffett, known as the Oracle of Omaha and a buy-and-hold investor, amassed his fortune by acquiring undervalued companies. Berkshire Hathaway has made investments in significant, well-known corporations more recently. In addition to consumer goods, its portfolio of fully owned companies also includes investments in the railways, energy distribution, and insurance industries. Buffett is a well-known Bitcoin doubter as well.

A large portion of Buffett's wealth is invested in charitable causes. Between 2006 and 2020, he gave $41 billion, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and his children's charities. A charitable campaign called "The Giving Pledge" was jointly launched by Buffett and Bill Gates in 2010.

Despite being 92 years old, Buffett is still the company's CEO, and in 2021, he predicted Gregory Abel, who oversees Berkshire's non-insurance activities, will take over as his likely replacement.

Conclusion

There is no trillionaire present yet, but if the above-listed billionaire's growth would increase at the same pace, then Elon Musk may be the first to become a trillionaire in the world. The world's economy, politics, and philanthropy are significantly influenced by billionaires. Forbes forecasts that there will be 2,640 billionaires in the globe by 2024.

The wealthiest people belong to a club that is much more exclusive and has even more power. Many of these billionaires started significant technological companies, and they still have a sizable amount of their wealth invested in those businesses.

They can still borrow against that wealth to avoid selling shares and postponing paying taxes on unrealized capital gains. Many tax benefits are available to multi-billionaires, who can utilize them to offset their reported income. As a result, some of the people on this list have recently paid no income tax.