When Elon Musk Shops for Groceries
Here’s how much items would cost if he paid the same share of his wealth as the median U.S. family
Here is something Elon Musk does not do: He does not compare prices of apples in the supermarket. Because when you’re worth almost $200 billion, the difference between cheap apples and expensive apples is beyond meaningless. We’re talking about a guy whose wealth rose $13.6 billion in a single day. According to Bloomberg’s Rich list, the chief executive officer of electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc. is now the world’s wealthiest person, with a net worth of $194.8 billion, surpassing Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon.com Inc.
But as a thought experiment, imagine that Musk had to pay for stuff in proportion to his wealth. His net worth is approximately 1.6 million times that of the median American family, which was $121,700 in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. So anything costing the median family $1 would cost him $1.6 million.