Woman becomes richest person in the world with a net worth 100,000 times bigger than Elon Musk’s
The small business owner eclipsed Elon Musk as the wealthiest person on Earth last week but with one major catch
Elon Musk's vast personal fortune, the largest in human history, was put to shame last week by a woman who discovered that she was the richest person on Earth while she was buying a matcha latte.
Well, kinda. Small business owner Sophie Downing looked down at the receipt for her coffee, which she'd bought with a gift card, and learned she was now the world's first quadrillionaire.
According to the receipt, the Nottingham, England, resident found out that she had an insane £63 quadrillion ($85 quadrillion) left on her £10 Christmas voucher for the medium-sized cafe chain, 200 Degrees Coffee.
For reference, that is 63 with 15 zeros after it, or 63,000 trillion. Meaning that she was 100,000 times richer than Elon Musk. Hell, her gift card made her worth about 670 times more than the total GDP of planet Earth.
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The only catch, as far as she could see it, was that she could only spend her £63 quadrillion on coffee and pastries.
"I thought it was really funny. I've never seen anything like that before," the 29-year-old told the Nottingham Post, also sharing the surprising reaction of the barista on duty when he found out that he had just served the richest person on Earth.
Downing said: "The guy at the till was really confused. His face was just like 'what?"
But rather than taking the card off her, or removing the balance in some form, the entrepreneur told the publication that he had simply handed it back to her. She added: "This massive number came up on the till. He said 'I've never seen it before but it's fine for you to keep it'.
"I didn't clock it until he gave me the receipt. I thought 'surely not, that's actually crazy'."
The lucky woman, who runs a hair removal business in the English city that lays claim to the Robin Hood myth, even went back this past week to see if she was still a quadrillionaire. And her balance had barely changed.
"Maybe they have scanned the wrong thing. It looks as though they have scanned the barcode which has turned into the balance," Downing reflected. "I could go in and clear everything off the shelf but I don't want to take the mick."
While this number is truly massive, representing roughly 41 trillion years of work at the US federal minimum wage of $7.25, the reality of destroying global financial systems with an overloaded gift card that can only purchase coffee is significantly more mundane.
And most importantly, as Downing pointed out: "It would be better if it was a different gift card."
William Morgan