You know that feeling when you check your bank account and realize you have just enough for coffee and a gas station sandwich? Now imagine that feeling, but replace "coffee and sandwich" with "a small country and a private island." That’s the gap between you and the world’s richest people. We’re not talking about millionaires or even billionaires here. We’re talking about the trillionaire—a mythical creature that currently doesn’t exist, but is lurking just around the corner of the global economy.
Let’s be real: a trillion is a number so big it makes your brain do the math equivalent of a blue screen. If you spent a million dollars every single day, it would take you nearly 2,740 years to spend a trillion. That’s longer than recorded human history. So when I ask who is closest to being a trillionaire, I’m asking who is basically a final boss of capitalism.
The Usual Suspects
Right now, the front-runner is Bernard Arnault, the French king of luxury goods. He runs LVMH, the company behind Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Moët & Chandon. His net worth sometimes flirts with $230 billion, which is a lot, but still four times less than a trillion. Imagine saving up your allowance for a decades-old bottle of wine, only to realize you’re still short by a whole vineyard.
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Then there's Elon Musk, the guy who sells flamethrowers and wants to live on Mars. His wealth bounces around like a caffeinated kangaroo—one day it’s $250 billion, the next it drops by $50 billion because he tweeted something spicy. He’s close on paper, but his fortune is tied to Tesla stock, which is about as stable as a Jenga tower in an earthquake.
Jeff Bezos is still in the race, too, but he’s been less visible since he started building spaceships and spending his money on looking like a futuristic wizard. He’s currently worth about $180 billion. That’s a lot of Amazon boxes, but he’s still a long way from “buying the entire internet.”
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But Wait—There’s a Wildcard
Here’s where it gets funny. The person who is technically closest to being a trillionaire isn’t any of these guys. It’s someone you’ve never heard of: Mukesh Ambani. He’s an Indian billionaire who runs Reliance Industries, a company that does everything from oil to phones to grocery stores. In 2020, he actually gained $1.2 billion during the pandemic while the rest of us were baking sourdough. His net worth is around $100 billion, but his wealth is growing so fast that economists say he could hit a trillion by 2030—if he keeps his current pace and the Indian economy keeps booming.
Why does this matter to you, though? Because Ambani’s story is like watching a neighbor who started a lemonade stand, then bought the whole town, then built a lemonade factory in space. It’s weirdly inspiring if you ignore the part where you’re still hunting for loose change in your couch cushions.
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The Real Trillionaire Could Be a Robot (or Your Kid)
Here’s the kicker: the first trillionaire might not be a human at all. Artificial intelligence companies or a future space mining venture could create a sudden explosion of wealth. Imagine if someone figures out how to mine asteroids for platinum. Suddenly, that one company is worth more than every country on Earth combined. That’s like finding a $100 bill in your coat pocket—except the coat is a spaceship and the bill is a metal-rich rock the size of a city.
Or, and this is the funniest part, maybe the first trillionaire is someone like you. Not literally you—you’re reading this while eating cereal over the sink, I know. But a regular person who invents something incredibly boring that everyone needs. Like a better toilet paper dispenser. If every human on Earth bought just one, the inventor would be a billionaire. Make it a subscription service, and bam—trillionaire.
Top 10 people most likely to reach trillionaire status | CNBC Africa
What Would You Actually Do With a Trillion Dollars?
Let’s pause and think. If you won a trillion dollars, you could buy every home in your neighborhood, then every neighborhood in your city, then every city in your state, and still have enough left to buy the state of Delaware just for fun. You could pay off the U.S. national debt (sort of), but then you’d be broke again. So what do people who are almost there actually do? They build rockets, buy football teams, and occasionally buy a Picasso just to hang in the bathroom.
The truth is, the closer you get to a trillion, the less you care about money. It becomes a game of legacy and ego. Elon wants to die on Mars, Bezos wants to die in space, and Arnault wants to die surrounded by handbags. It’s all a bit ridiculous when you realize we’re all just trying to afford rent.
So, who is closest to being a trillionaire? Probably nobody yet, but the race is on. And while they’re counting their billions, just remember: you’re closer to being a millionaire than they are to being a trillionaire. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m buying gas-station coffee. And smiling.
