You probably know many of the names in the Top 10 of the Forbes Billionaires index. But, most of us don’t know who the first trillionaire will be. Care to make an educated guess?

The names you probably know about who are in the top 10: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. And, don’t forget Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Google’s Larry Page. 

The top 10 of the Forbes list is a smorgasbord of hugely successful business owners who have amassed billions of dollars. Or in the case of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, hundreds of billions. 

Who do you think will be the first one to hit the $1 trillion mark?

Who will be the world’s first trillionaire?

While nobody really knows who the first trillionaire will be, it’s a good bet that it’ll be someone tracked on the Forbes Billionaires index. It’ll most likely be someone in the top 10. 

Venture capital billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya believes it’ll be Elon Musk. Musk is an eccentric CEO who continues to push the envelope of space travel and electric automobiles and hopes to connect everyone around the world – even remote areas, to the Internet with Starlink. 

Not to mention colonize Mars. 

But, Palihapitiya’s reason might surprise you. “The world’s richest person should be somebody that’s fixing or fighting climate change,” Palihapitiya told CNBC in an interview. 

Tesla is more than just a car manufacturer. It’s an energy company, Palihapitiya said. “They are figuring out how to harvest energy, how to store it, and then how to use it to allow humans to be productive.” 

Of course, it’s also about the money. Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos both trade the #1 and #2 spots on the billionaires list. Both men are worth north of $150 billion a piece. 

And speaking of Bezos…

The first trillionaire could be Jeff Bezos instead. In 1994, Bezos started a small online bookstore in his garage called Amazon.com. Today, his company is worth more than $1.5 trillion and has changed the entire e-commerce landscape. 

In fact, I probably have about $100 sitting in my Amazon shopping cart right now. 

And, Coronavirus made Bezos even richer as millions of people relied on online ordering and delivery services rather than shopping at local stores. In 2020, the Amazon founder bumped his net worth up by almost $30 billion. As of this writing, Bezos leads the Forbes Billionaires list with a net worth approaching $200 billion.  

According to Business Insider, Bezos is on track to hit the trillion mark by 2026 assuming his wealth continues to grow by an average of 34%, as it has over the last five years. Bezos would be 62 if the trend holds. 

A Comparisun report studied this trillion-dollar question and predicts Bezos will be first to hit a trillion. However, the report also noted that Zuckerberg could be the youngest person to hit $1 trillion. At Zuckerberg’s current growth rate, the Facebook founder would hit $1 trillion at 51. 

“Of the 25 individuals we analyzed, only eleven realistically have a chance of becoming a trillionaire during their lifetime, based on their recent rate of wealth growth,” said the report. 

It is worth noting that the Comparisun study was conducted before the Coronavirus pandemic that ushered a meteoric rise in both Bezos’s and Musk’s wealth. 

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is running in third place on the billionaires list with a net worth of over $140 billion. And, a 2018 Oxfam report on wealth found that Bill Gates might be a candidate for reaching $1 trillion first. 

“As of 2013, Gates had donated at least $28 billion to the Gates Foundation. Unless the 61-year-old can figure out how to give even more away in the coming years, he could enter a never-before-seen class of wealth by the time he’s 86.”

Whether it’s Musk, Bezos, Gates, or someone else, nobody truly knows who will be the first to reach a trillion. But, the winner will certainly go down in the history books, and for good reason.