Elon Musk Is Even Wealthier Than Scrooge McDuck, Tony Stark And Jay Gatsby

The news that Elon Musk’s wealth is greater than the combined wealth of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg put the Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) chieftain into a class by himself. Indeed, with $335.1 billion in his piggy bank, Musk takes on an aura of zillionaire status rarely found outside of comic books or movies.

And that leads us to question: how does Musk compare to the ridiculously rich of pop culture fantasy? It would seem that this is an example where truth is genuinely stranger than fiction.

Elon Musk vs. Scrooge McDuck: When it comes to the unapologetically rich, no one compares to the Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE: DIS) deep-pocketed avian Scrooge McDuck. But the animated moneybags might seem like a poor relation compared to Musk. According to a recent Forbes analysis of the richest fictional characters of all time, Scrooge McDuck is only worth $65.4 billion.

Still, Scrooge McDuck might be happier with his riches than Musk — after all, when was the last time you saw Musk dive head-first into a basement vault full of gold coins?

Elon Musk vs. Tony Stark: The aforementioned Forbes study placed Scrooge McDuck at the top of its list of the richest fictional characters, with Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) ranked fifth at $12.5 billion.

Yet Musk would hardly flaunt his wealth over Stark. In fact, the two crossed paths briefly in the 2010 film “Iron Man 2” — though maybe in the next MCU flick “Musk Man,” Tony Stark gets the blink-and-you-miss-him appearance while the Tesla leader walks off with Gwyneth Paltrow.

Elon Musk's Wealth Has Increased So Much, He Could Buy Every MLB, NBA, NFL And NHL Team

Elon Musk vs. Auric Goldfinger: To his credit, Musk insists on using his money in pursuit of scientific and technological breakthroughs. He is not trying to break into Fort Knox to expand his fortune.

But when Goldfinger was trying to infiltrate Fort Knox, the facility only held $15 billion in gold reserves — heck, that’s tip-the-cloak-room-attendant money for Musk. Plus, Goldfinger’s net worth was a mere $6.5 billion – by today’s standards, pricey peanuts.

Nonetheless, Musk won’t be able to one-up Goldfinger in the public’s imagination until he gets Dame Shirley Bassey to sing his praises.

Elon Musk vs. Jay Gatsby: Musk knows what he wants and has been able to get it. Alas, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s anti-hero couldn’t get what he wanted, despite his best-laid schemes.

Perhaps he would have been more successful if he had a Musk-worthy bank account: the former James Gatz only had a net worth of a dismal $1 billion, which is chump change among the 2021 rich guys.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Photo: Steve Jurvetson / Flickr Creative Commons.