Report: World’s first trillionaires could be from Texas

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square

The world’s first trillionaires could be from Texas, according to a new analysis of the 30 richest people in the world.

A new report published by the software company Tipalti Approve estimates that newly relocated Texas resident, Tesla CEO, and billionaire Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire by 2024. Houston native and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell could become a trillionaire by 2033.

If they were to reach trillionaire status today, they’d have a net worth of 1.17% of the global GDP, which is currently $84.75 trillion, according to the World Bank.

In 2022, “there are nine centibillionaires with fortunes greater than $100 billion,” according to Tipalti’s analysis.

In order to identify who could become the first trillionaire, it compared the annual net worth of the top 30 richest people from 2017 through today, calculating the year-after-year annual growth rate of each of their net worths.

Tipalti Approve estimates that Musk’s wealth will reach $1 trillion by 2024 by calculating the year-over-year growth of his current net worth of $263 billion.

Fed up with Democratic policies in California in 2020, Musk relocated to Texas, citing a friendlier business environment. He also announced this year he was no longer voting for Democrats and was voting for Republicans.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican running for his third term, has welcomed Musk to Texas and expressed support for him voting for Republicans. He’s also encouraged Musk to relocate Twitter to Texas.

Musk’s SpaceX has been operating for years in Boca Chica, Texas, outside of Brownsville. And in Austin, his new Tesla Gigafactory, which was recently completed near the airport, isn’t far from The Boring Company, another company he created to build safe, low-cost transportation, utility, and freight tunnels.

With his pending $44 billion purchase of Twitter still on the table, a Texas farmer and businessman offered Musk 100 acres to relocate the social media company’s headquarters from San Francisco to the Austin area.

“Elon Musk, move Twitter to Schwertner, TX,” Jim Schwertner, president, and CEO of Schwertner Farms, tweeted April 26. “38 miles North of Austin in Williamson County, and we will give you 100 Acres for FREE.”

If Musk were to relocate Twitter, it wouldn’t be far from others in Silicon Valley that have set up shop in downtown Austin, including Google, Apple, Meta, and TikTok.

Of the 30 richest people in the world, 21 “realistically have a chance” to become a trillionaire, the Tipalti analysis says.

The report lists potential trillionaires and the year it expects them to reach the trillionaire club. It includes Adani Group Chairman Guatam Adani by 2025; Zhang Zhang Yiming, founder and chairman of ByteDance Technology Co., which owns TikTok, by 2026; Louis Vuitton CEO Mukesh Ambani by 2029; Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos by 2030; Google co-founder Larry Page by 2032; L.A. Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer by 2032; Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by 2034; Oracle CEO Larry Ellison by 2036; Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates by 2044, among others.