In light of recent events of having the world's first trillionaire, as of June 2026, Elon Musk's net worth is estimated to be around $1.3 trillion, making him the wealthiest person in the world. Elon Musk prides himself as an innovator. The man that will take us to Mars and save all of humanity. While I do understand that Elon's net worth is tied to his stock in SpaceX, Government contracts, and other investments in the industrial space, I cannot help but think about all the problems he could solve with proper investment of his $1.3 Trillion dollar net worth.
But first a bit of perspective since $1 Trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is a very large number. A Trillion is a Million Millions, a Thousand Billions. If you were to make $1 dollar every second ($3600.00 an hour) you would be a millionaire in 11.5 days. A billionaire in about 33 years. And a trillionaire in 31,707.5 years. To become a trillionaire by age 35, you would need to make approximately $78.9 million per day starting from birth. So this is a lot of money, so much money that the GDP of a collective 150 countries are less than Elon Musk's current net worth. So much money that Elon could purchase every single family home in the entire state of Texas (roughly 131,469 homes), according to census data in 2024 there are approximately 771,480 individuals that have experienced homelessness in for at least 1 day in 2023, chronically homeless individuals however range as 143,000 people as of 2023, thus housing over 90% of America's most critically at risk homeless individuals.
The world’s biggest polluters probably are not going to do enough to curb CO2 emissions in time to stop global warming. So scientists have been looking for other ways to cool the planet. In the 1990s, a climatologist named John Latham became obsessed with the Twomey Effect, which expresses the amount of solar radiation reflected back into space from clouds. The denser the clouds, the more sunlight that bounces back. Latham realized that the cloud density could be increased by seeding them with tiny salt water droplets. The theory has never been tested but many are quite confident it would work.
Nearly 900,000 yearly deaths due to mosquito driven malaria, mostly young children, according to the World Health Organization. Scientists have tried for years to wipe out the vicious killer, mostly by using insecticide on the mosquitoes that carry it. But the disease always bounces back. One radical solution is to eradicate the three mosquitoes species that transmit the disease altogether (Anopheles, Culex and Aedes) using genetic modification to render the insects sterile. A study looking at the effect of getting rid of mosquitoes found that removal is unlikely to have a big impact on local ecosystems due to the other 200+ species of mosquito able to take their place. Some small, in lab trials have shown that this genetic alteration might be effective in curbing tropical diseases, but more research dollars are needed to study its viability in the real world.
Solving the housing crisis in the U.S. would require an estimated additional $9.6 billion to provide housing for all the homeless currently in homeless shelters. Additionally, addressing the overall housing affordability crisis involves increasing housing supply and expanding rental assistance. Both increasing housing supply and expanding rental assistance are essential to alleviate the housing crisis. Without these measures, many families will continue to struggle with high housing costs and inadequate living conditions. According to the Economic Security Project an entire generation is feeling home ownership slipping out of reach as the median age of a first time home buyer rises to 35, increasing three years over the past decade and eight since the 1970s.
The total medical debt owed by Americans is estimated to be over $220 billion. This figure represents the cumulative debt incurred from unpaid medical bills across the country. Medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S and it affects a significant portion of the population, particularly low income families, women, and people of color. Many individuals delay seeking medical care due to fear of incurring additional debt causing a drastic increase in preventable mortality rates. By eliminating healthcare debt and leveraging your investment in healthcare we could pivot to universal healthcare by purchasing the debt and rolling the funds into the Medicaid program that estimates a growth of $30 to $40 trillion over ten years allowing medical care to be accessible to all Americans via these programs.
Cancer treatment costs vary widely by type, stage, and care setting, with per patient averages of $43,516 in the first year, $5,516 during continuing care, and $109,727 in the last year of life. The financial burden of cancer treatment can lead to significant out of pocket expenses, especially for those with high deductible insurance plans. Many patients face financial toxicity, which refers to the stress and hardship caused by the high costs of care. Approximately 626,000 Americans will die from cancer this year, we could fund and treat every American with cancer.
According to the United Nations in 2025 ending world hunger costs less than 1% of military spending. Estimates for the cost to end hunger globally range from $7 billion to $265 billion per year, depending on the strategies and interventions implemented. Let's take the average and say $136 billion dollars a year, $1 Trillion can fund ending world hunger for 7.5 years. But of course this is just flat paying the cost of feeding every person in the world. Investing those funds into sustainable growth and farming would last significantly longer of not indefinitely.
According to the Campaign For Nature protecting just 30% of all critically endangered land could radically prevent deforestation and save protected species. The average cost of all this protected land per year is roughly $140 Billion dollars per year, this means that with $1 trillion, it could fund the protection of land for about 7 years at the current investment rate. This significant amount could greatly increase the total area of protected land during that time.
According to the Pew Research Center veterans in America face several significant issues, including mental health disorders like PTSD, difficulties transitioning to civilian life, and challenges accessing healthcare and benefits. Additionally, many veterans experience financial hardships and a higher risk of suicide compared to the general population. With the funding needed to solve these issues and assist veterans that are high risk, Elon could fund every veteran for a total of $55,500 dollars of housing, medical expenses, and mental health aid. The average annual veteran disability compensation payment ranges from $1,425 to $48,227 per person. In fiscal year 2024, the Department of Veterans Affairs spent $324.9 billion, which accounted for 4.8% of all federal spending.
Emerging diseases and weak healthcare systems worsen due to the unequal access to vaccines. According to the University Of Minnesota the rising costs of vaccines for children and adults have increased roughly 1% every year for the last 6 years. We could fund every person in America to have access to vaccines based on the current CDC pricing index for the next thousand years!
This brief and depressing look at the financial state of the world seems bleak, where a majority of the world's problems seem so close to being solved, but held just out of reach by those in power. This is not a direct critique of Elon Musk, but the wealthy capitalist elites at large. We could save the world, but that would mean that they would have a little less, and we just cannot have that.