Fascinating realisation over Bill Gates' net worth changes how people view money as gold prices hit record low
While there are continued messages to 'eat the rich', we're pretty sure tucking into a rare fillet of Elon Musk would land you in jail. Still, there are some fair complaints that the world's richest men only seem to be getting richer.
Boasting a February 2026 net worth peak of $852 billion, that's since slipped down to just $814.2 billion at the time of writing as Elon Musk is well on the way to becoming the world's first trillionaire.
It's hard to fathom exactly how rich Musk really is, but with Forbes' live billionaires list putting him some $566 billion ahead of Google's Larry Page in second place, it doesn't look like anyone's going to be able to touch him in the near future.
Although it's true that Oracle's Larry Ellison briefly overtook Musk in September 2025, and it used to be a close race as Jeff Bezos crept up on him in second place, Musk has managed to (quite literally) turn his fortune around after stepping away from the Department of Government Efficiency.
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Even though Musk's net worth is heavily tied to the stock market, there are rumbles that he could actually profit from the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran. The price of gold has hit a low not seen since 1983, but with investors poised to shift their money into tech stocks in the likes of companies owned by Musk, that lucrative $1 trillion milestone is looming.
While Musk looks destined to become the world's first trillionaire, there's an unusual claim that his net worth pales in comparison to that of Bill Gates.
Even though the Microsoft co-founder has vowed to give away most of his money as part of the Giving Pledge, Gates still has an impressive $102.7 billion net worth. He was also notably the world's richest man from 1998 to 2007, and again from 2009 until Bezos surpassed him in 2018.
It's been reported that Gates could've been a trillionaire if he'd held onto his Microsoft stocks instead of selling or giving the majority away, but what would that look like in terms of gold? Over on Reddit, someone crunched the numbers and suggested that Gates' net worth would've been worth over twice what Musk's is at its peak. Well, at least when measured in gold.
If you converted Gates' 1999 peak of $100 billion and a gold price of $278 per ounce, that equates to 360 million ounces of the precious metal.
Taking Musk's $852 billion peak and a gold price of $4,900 per ounce, it comes out at 174 million ounces.
Other familiar names make the list, with Bezos' $211 billion peak being worth 117 million ounces, Page’s $281 billion equalling 106 million ounces, and Ellison's $270 billion being the same as 102 million ounces.
It's a fascinating way of looking at the wealth of the world's richest, and in the comments, others were equally impressed.
One person wrote: "This is by far the best method of measuring across timelines/eras. Adjusted for inflation is stupid, and in general $value is biased towards US Billionaires and ignores old riches like Maharajas from India or kingdoms in other parts of the world."
Another added: "Crazy to see the old time millionaires still in the running."
A third concluded: "VERY interesting! That’s actually a good way to measure wealth across the years and generations. I’ll start to use that method. Thanks!"
Someone else suggested a different calculation and noted that in 1999, Gates was 1.04% of the $9.6 trillion GPP, whereas Musk was 2.78% of 2025's $30.6 trillion GDP, neither of them is exactly short of a dollar or two.