You think you’re a big spender? Honestly, everyone does until they’re staring down a virtual bank account with over $700 billion in it. That is the exact premise of the spend elon musk's money game, a web-based simulator that’s been floating around the internet in various forms since 2021. It sounds like a dream. You click a button, buy a Falcon 9 rocket, and barely see the numbers move.
It's humbling.
The game isn't just about clicking buttons; it's a weirdly existential lesson in how much wealth one human can actually control. As of early 2026, Elon Musk’s net worth has soared to roughly $726 billion, according to the latest Forbes data. To put that in perspective, if you spent $1 million every single day, it would take you nearly 2,000 years to run out. Most people who play these games realize pretty quickly that buying a fleet of Ferraris or a few private islands is basically like picking up a penny off the sidewalk for Musk.
How to Play the Spend Elon Musk's Money Challenge
The mechanics are usually dead simple. You’re presented with a grid of items. Each item has a price tag and a "Buy" button. Some versions of the game, like the one created by Italian designer Nino Trivelli, give you a timer. You might have 30 or 60 seconds to blow the entire fortune.
You start small. A Big Mac for $8. A Netflix subscription for $15. Maybe a Nintendo Switch for $299.
Then you get bored.
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You start clicking the "Mega Yacht" button ($300 million). You buy 50 of them. You buy every single NFL team ($3 billion each). You buy the Mona Lisa, which is valued at roughly $869 million in most simulators. You’re clicking like a maniac, your finger is getting tired, and you look up at the balance.
$710 billion remaining.
It’s frustrating! People on Reddit have shared their "receipts" from the game, and the reactions are almost always the same. One user joked about buying a trip in an ambulance and being told they didn't have enough funds—a classic jab at the US healthcare system—while another lamented that even with 10 "Elons" they couldn't afford to buy Microsoft.
What You Can Actually Buy in the Simulator
The items list in these games is a wild mix of the mundane and the astronomical. It’s designed to show the scale of wealth inequality in a way that a graph just can’t.
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- The Chump Change: These are the items that exist just to mock you. McDonald’s meals, iPhones, and MacBooks. You could buy one for every person in a small country and still be the richest person on Earth.
- The Luxury Tier: We’re talking about $10,000 Rolexes and $250,000 Ferraris. Even at this level, you aren't making a dent.
- The Institutional Tier: This is where the game gets interesting. You can "buy" a Formula 1 team for about $700 million or a Hollywood movie production for $90 million.
- The "Elon" Specials: Since it's his money, you'll usually see SpaceX Falcon 9 launches ($50 million) and Tesla Roadsters ($200,000) on the list.
Why This Game Keeps Going Viral
We’re obsessed with billionaires. It’s a mix of fascination and a little bit of horror. When you play a game to spend elon musk's money, you're participating in a digital protest of sorts, or at least a collective realization of scale.
The math is just broken for the human brain.
We can visualize $1,000. We can maybe visualize $1,000,000 if we imagine a very nice house. But $700 billion? That’s not a number; it’s an abstraction. By gamifying it, developers like Melih Bahri Aktan (who built one of the popular mobile versions) turned a dry economic fact into a competitive challenge.
There's also the "What If" factor. What if you really had that money? Most players start by buying things they actually want—a nice house, a jet, maybe a sports team. But once those desires are satisfied, they pivot to weird stuff. They buy 10,000 tanks. They buy the entire Steam library five times over. They try to "fix" things by buying up debt or funding thousands of years of college educations.
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The 2026 Reality Check
In the years since these games first appeared, Musk's wealth has behaved like a roller coaster. In early 2025, his net worth actually dipped by $102 billion in a single month due to political controversies and Tesla stock fluctuations. But by 2026, he’s back on top, nearing the trillionaire mark.
This makes the game harder to "win."
Earlier versions of the simulator only gave you $160 billion or $200 billion to play with. Spending $726 billion in 60 seconds is almost physically impossible without a macro or an auto-clicker. It’s the ultimate idle game, except the "gold" is real-world equity.
Strategy: How to Actually Empty the Account
If you’re determined to see that $0.00 balance, you have to stop thinking like a consumer and start thinking like a nation-state.
- Ignore the small stuff. Don’t even look at the electronics or the cars. They are a waste of your time and clicks.
- Spam the sports teams. Buying every NBA, NFL, and MLB team is a quick way to drop $100 billion.
- Real Estate is key. Look for "Modern Buildings" or "L.A. Mansions." These are high-value items that allow for rapid spending.
- The "Big Fish" items. If the game includes "Country-level" debt or massive tech companies, buy those immediately.
Most people fail because they get distracted by the novelty of buying 500,000 Big Macs. Don't be that person. You have an empire to liquidate.
Actionable Insights for Your Next Session
- Check the Version: Different sites use different net worth figures. If you want the "hard mode," find a version updated for 2026 that reflects his current $700B+ valuation.
- Compare with Reality: Use the game as a jumping-off point to look at actual 2026 GDP figures. You'll find that Musk's personal fortune is currently larger than the GDP of over 170 individual countries.
- Try the "Ethical" Run: Instead of buying toys, try to spend the money only on items that benefit others—like "Years of Netflix for Everyone" or "University Degrees"—and see how much "good" you can do before the timer runs out.
Playing the spend elon musk's money game is a trip. It starts as a power fantasy and usually ends with a slightly uncomfortable realization about how the world's wealth is distributed. Whether you're doing it for the memes or to satisfy a "Brewster's Millions" itch, it's one of those rare internet relics that stays relevant because the numbers just keep getting bigger.