Musk’s net worth means that he makes over $430M daily. That makes it impossible for the average American employee to work their way to his wealth. Based on 2020’s OECD data, that worker would make $69, 392 annually. They would need to work for 3M years to attain Musk’s holdings.
The numbers become inconceivable when you consider the median income. A 2020 St. Louis Federal Reserve analysis put U.S. median personal incomes at $35,805. Working with this figure would more than double the duration it would take to match Musk‘s net worth.
A million years’ quest
On their part, Germans would have to work for almost a million years at $53,475 annually to match Dieter Schwarz’s fortune. The Owner of Schwarz-Gruppe is worth some $47B.
Canadian Changpeng Zhao is his nation’s wealthiest person. His ownership of Binance, the largest crypto exchange globally, has seen him amass a fortune of $55B. His fellow average Canadian would have to work for 1.2M years to attain that feat.
How do the figures compare in low-income countries?
These figures are already astronomical by Western States standards. But they become starker in countries with low average incomes and significant wealth disparities. Such nations include India and China.
India’s wealthiest man Mukesh Ambani is worth some $91B. The mean annual wage in India is about $5,000. Therefore, it would take his compatriots earning the mean wage 17 million years to amass his kind of fortune.
Similarly, it’d take 15.3 years for a regular Chinese employee to raise the $66B that Zhong Shanshan is worth.
