This article was published on May 18, 2021

This game gives you 30 seconds to spend Elon Musk’s grotesque net worth

Who wants to be a billionaire? (I do)


This game gives you 30 seconds to spend Elon Musk’s grotesque net worth Image by: LeasingOptions

What would you do if you were one of the richest people on earth? I imagine you’d generously donate all your money to charity — which is probably why you’re reading about Elon Musk rather than living like him.

The Tesla tycoon briefly topped the Bloomberg Billionaires Index earlier this year, although he’s since slipped down to third place, behind space rival Jeff Bezos and LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault.

Still, a fortune of $146.5 billion is a decent chunk of cash to plow into his companies, cars, and a curious collection of charities, from a temple at Burning Man to a protest group fighting gridlock on his commute to work. But spending all those billions isn’t easy, as Musk graciously admits. The SpaceX founder recently asked his 55 million Twitter followers for tips on donations.

While we wait for him to follow our shrewd investment advice, we can do the next best thing: splash his cash virtually.

[Read moreThis dude drove an EV from the Netherlands to New Zealand — here are his 3 top road trip tips]

Car rental firm LeasingOptions recently released a game that challenges you to spend Space Karen’s eye-watering net worth on an array of tempting items, from a single Big Mac to a Falcon 9 rocket launch. But you’ll have to invest quickly: every dime needs to disappear within 30 seconds.

Spend Elon Musk's money
Credit: LeasingOptions
I’ll have 20 billion Big Macs, please.

I chose an investment strategy that the environmental philanthropist would surely respect: buying 2,160 private jets. Unfortunately, my furious clicking only soaked up $9.7 billion of Musk’s reserves, leaving him $156.3 billion to spend on building martian cities and implanting computer chips in our brains.

If you think you could do a better job, you can give the game a go here. Just don’t expect to get to the bottom of Musk’s pit of money; even squandering it on space rockets is a challenge. The struggle is real.

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