Fill every pothole in the UK – and electrify the entire rail network
Right now, the backlog for repairing local roads in England and Wales stands at £16.8 billion, according to the Asphalt Industry Alliance.
With Musk’s trillion‑dollar windfall, you could resurface all these crumbling roads, and you’d still have over £900 billion left for other projects.
It’d be spare change to electrify Britain’s entire rail network According to Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy, the cost of electrification typically ranges from £1–2.5 million per single-track kilometre. Electrifying the remaining diesel-only parts of the network – roughly 10,000 km – would cost £18–26 billion.
Fund the entire NHS in England for almost four years
The NHS in England now costs around £205 billion a year to run – covering everything from GP surgeries and A&E departments to cancer services, ambulances, maternity care, and the salaries of 1.4 million staff. With Musk’s possible trillion-dollar pay cheque (£761.9 billion), you could pay the entire annual NHS budget for nearly four years.
Pay for climate loss and damage for two and a half years
At COP28, wealthy nations pledged US$700 million toward the Loss & Damage Fund – a fund for developing countries pay to adapt the catastrophic impacts of global heating. Just $321 million has been paid in.
Both the pledges and the reality fall far short of need, estimated to be roughly $400 billion USD per year. A trillion USD could fund disaster clean up, flood adaptations, crop restoration, emergency relocations, and new climate resilient infrastructure. Or, Musk could use it to expand his private jet collection and to build a climate collapse-proof bunker.
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Buy the original Faberge eggs in the world – 1,000 times over
A Fabergé egg is perhaps the ultimate symbol of extravagance. These intricate bejewelled objects de art were crafted by the House of Faberge jewellery firm for the Russian Imperial family from 1885 to 1916 – right before the Bolshevik revolution swept to power and the Romanovs were murdered.
Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II commissioned 50 Fabergé eggs – decorated with gold, silver, and jewels – as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers.
In December, the ‘Imperial Winter Egg’ will sell at auction in London. It has been valued at £20 million. Musk’s trillion could buy a 50,000 such eggs.
Buy every player in the Premier League and every Premier League home ticket for a millenia
Astronomical football transfer fees often draw incredulity – but with Musk’s paycheck, you could buy every single player in the Premier League.
Using current squad market valuations, the combined value of all 20 Premier League squads sits at roughly £9-10 billion. Musk could purchase every player, in every squad, end still have enough money left over to buy all of the home tickets at every Prem game for the next millenia (at present ticket revenue levels, that would cost roughly £830m per year).
Switch on Christmas lights across Britain for 40,000 years
In recent years, cash‑strapped councils have begun scrapping Christmas lights to balance their books. Medway Council, for instance, cancelled lights across five towns in 2023 to save £75,000.
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On average, local authorities spend around £49,500 a year to decorate their high streets.
With Musk’s hypothetical £761.9 billion, you could underwrite every single local authority’s Christmas-light budget in the UK – all 382 councils – for 40,292 years.
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