More than a billionaire — a trillionaire!

The saying “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is not just a cliché. It’s the truth.

Take the case of the rotten, fascist, white supremacist known as Elon Musk. Before the Initial Public Offering of SpaceX stock he was “just” a multibillionaire. The sale of stock at $135 per share gave Musk’s 42% of SpaceX shares a valuation of $648 billion. Combined with the rest of his ill-gotten wealth, he is officially the world’s first trillionaire. 

This is not to say that he has $1 trillion in the bank, only that his combined holdings are currently valued at over $1 trillion. Musk’s “worth” — if you can call it that — surged even higher as the price of SpaceX stock, currently at $185 per share, increased. At one point it reached the peak price of $225 per share.

While Musk has more money than he could possibly count, the 2024 U.S. Census Bureau data showed almost 36 million people — 10.6% of the population — lived below the poverty rate of $31,812 for a family of four. The percentage is even higher for people of color — 15% for Latine, 18.4% for African American and 19.3% for Indigenous people. These numbers include 14.3 million children under the age of 18. (americanprogress.org)

As head of the notorious Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk eliminated some 300,000 federal jobs – disproportionately those of women of color – before DOGE was terminated in May 2025.

Musk’s fabulous fortune puts the spotlight on the glaring inequality in capitalist society. It makes the very existence of a trillionaire an outrage — it’s outright criminal!

Of course, inequality is nothing new under capitalism. Writing in the 19th century, Karl Marx recognized the “intimate connection between the pangs of hunger of the most industrious layers of the working class, and the extravagant consumption, coarse or refined, of the rich.” (Capital, Vol. 1)

A bubble waiting to burst

As disgusting as this case of “rich getting richer” is, Musk’s trillionaire status may be ephemeral. If the stock value falls enough, he loses this trillionaire status −− which only Musk would regret.

The value of SpaceX could continue to drop, with investors reacting negatively to its acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) coding agent Cursor. According to Morningstar, an investor research firm, SpaceX is substantially overvalued and has an estimated “fair value” of $62 per share. (Mashable.com, June 19)

While Musk has stated that he would be “surprised if revenue were not greater than $1 trillion in 2031,” the world’s richest person has a history of overpromising. (Barchart.com, June 21)

Stock prices reflect anticipated profits — in Marxist terms, anticipated surplus value, which is the portion of the wealth created by wage laborers that the capitalists keep for themselves. When the anticipated profits are lower than expected, investors lose.

Marx explained long ago that wealth based on speculation — or gambling on the stock market — was “fictitious capital.” He explained that “it is only the capital actually invested in the working process which produces any surplus value.” (Capital, Vol 2) The inflated incomes of the billionaire — and now trillionaire — class can fall just as quickly as they rise.

Workers World agrees with Marx: The only real solution to the gross inequality under capitalism is a socialist revolution, throwing Musk and his fellow superrich into the trash bin of history.