Elon Musk reveals what he would do if he had to start over with $1,000 today

Elon Musk has revealed what he would do if he had to start over with just $1,000, as the prospect would leave the world's richest man with a challenge to regain his enormous wealth.

Nobody in history has ever been richer than Elon Musk is right now, as not only did he reach a net worth of $500 billion earlier this year, but he is currently nearly twice as wealthy as the next richest person in the world.

Most of this money is lodged in his ownership of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, and X, but he's certainly got more than enough dispensable income to throw around, especially if he manages to achieve the conditions needed to receive a record-breaking pay package from the electric car company.

One thing that's hard to deny though is that it's far easier to make money when you already have a lot of it, leaving many to wonder if Musk's supposed business 'genius' would be enough for him to make it to the top if he started all over again.

While featuring as a guest on The Katie Miller Podcast, Musk was asked what he would do if he started over again with just $1,000 in his bank account, and his answer was rather illuminating, as shared by Eric Daugherty on X.

🚨 LMFAO! Elon Musk gives the most ELON answer to "what would you do if you started over with $1,000?"

"It's somewhat of an impossible dichotomy, because civilization would have had to have been destroyed or something, in which case $1,000 is not going to solve your problems."… pic.twitter.com/WD6P2zjh5d

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 10, 2025

"It's something of an impossible dichotomy," Musk proposes, "because civilization would have had to have been destroyed or something, in which case $1,000 is not going to solve your problems."

The implication here is that it would be nearly impossible for Musk to lose enough of his net worth to leave him with just $1,000 outside of a cataclysmic event, which says more about his current net worth than pretty much anything else could.

"A lot of things would have to go wrong for that to be the case," Musk continued. "It's like, am I just emerging from prison, perhaps, with a stipend? All my companies have been confiscated. I mean, it would take armageddon, which hopefully that doesn't happen, like Ragnarok next level, and I lost."

The multibillionaire did half-jokingly assert, however, that "if civilisation hasn't melted, then I could probably just tell people to give me money, which I've done before."

One thing that could perhaps be more valuable to Musk than his existing funds is the knowledge he has gained over the years when it comes to earning money and keeping it.

"I mean, it's impossible for someone to have this amount of knowledge, all the knowledge that I have, and then be dropped down to a low resource amount," he illustrated, emphasizing again that out would need to be something extreme and out of his control to see his wealth reduced.

"Because the reality is that either something truly catastrophic has happened, like civilization has melted, or I will be able to ask people to just give me money, and with the promise that I will have a high return, which is what I'm able to do right now. Like if you give me a dollar, you will get back much more than a dollar."

Some have been left frustrated by this answer though, especially as it doesn't exactly serve as great advice for people wanting to emulate Musk's path to riches.

"What a dumb answer," writes one angry reply. "He couldn't just answer the question in good faith and discuss how he'd turn a thousand into a fortune? Frustrating answer."

Another professed that Musk "kinda missed the point of the question," wanting something different out of his answer.