Jessica Mendoza
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Appearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.
It's Tuesday, June 16th.
Coming up on the show, who wants to be a trillionaire?
Before the SpaceX IPO, before he was a trillionaire, you did the story where you tried to put into context just how wealthy Elon Musk is.
Why is that such a difficult number to communicate?
It's hard to wrap your mind around that number, much less what it could mean for a single human being.
So how did you wind up explaining it?
For context, the median sale price for a house in the U.S.
in the first quarter of 2026 was about $400,000.
So Musk could buy 2.4 million of those.
Another way to think about it?
Imagine you see a penny on the street and don't bother picking it up.
What would be the equivalent to that penny for Elon Musk?
And again, that was before the IPO.
Musk's journey from startup guy to trillionaire spans about 30 years.
Can you walk us through his financial resume?
Like, where does this money come from?