trillionaire en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- /ˌtɹɪl.jəˈnɛəɹ/ (General-American)
- (US) audio
- /ˌtɹɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/ (Received-Pronunciation)
Etymology
From trillion + -aire.
Meanings
-
(especially) A person whose wealth is at least one trillion (10¹²) currency units. ▸ One who is therefore very wealthy, because those currency units are not hyperinflated.
As it turns out, $1 trillion is such a large number and so far beyond the human imagination that we can't wrap our minds around it. A trillion is a thousand times more than a billion, but let's be honest: I could have told you it was a million times more and you probably would have believed me. Not long ago, the word trillionaire only appeared in The Wall Street Journal as hyperbole. It was an obviously exaggerated way of describing an inconceivable fortune—like calling someone a bazillionaire. But now that SpaceX is going public, it might just be something we call Elon Musk. In a way, it's fitting that the world's first trillionaire could be minted by a company with hopes of sending people to destinations unfathomably far away, since the sheer magnitude of a trillion is also impossible for us to fathom. So let's make it possible. A million seconds ago was about two weeks ago. A billion seconds ago was in 1994, when "Pulp Fiction" was about to open in theaters. What about a trillion seconds? Whatever number is in your head, you might want to add some millennia—because a trillion seconds ago was back in the Ice Age.
2026 June 11, Ben Cohen, “You have no idea what a trillion dollars is—and we have proof”, in The Wall Street Journal, New York, N.Y.: Dow Jones & Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 12 Jun 2026:Move over billionaires. The first trillionaires are on their way. […] Their net worth expanded so quickly that Oxfam revised its estimate from last year that only one trillionaire would be crowned in the next decade.
2025 January 19, Tami Luhby, “Get ready for the world’s first trillionaires”, in CNN, archived from the original on 28 Feb 2025:SpaceX has grown since its founding in 2002 into the most valuable piece of Musk’s vast tech empire. Its forthcoming IPO also stands to make the world’s richest person even wealthier, moving him closer to becoming a trillionaire from a current net worth of $807bn, according to Forbes.
2026 May 20, Nick Robins-Early, “SpaceX reveals plan for $1.75tn stock market debut that could make Musk a trillionaire”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 23 May 2026:The CEO of our company is a multibillionaire and now hopes to become a trillionaire.
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(sometimes) A person whose wealth is at least one trillion (10¹²) currency units. ▸ One who is not wealthy (nor rare), because those currency units are hyperinflated.
One popular foreign currency transaction scheme labelled 'burning money' made people instant quadrillionaires and trillionaires in Zimbabwean dollars.
2013, Brian Raftopoulos, David Moore, Norma Kriger, 'Progress' in Zimbabwe?: The Past and Present of a Concept and a Country, →ISBN, page 92:At its worst, the hyperinflation in Zimbabwe's currency rendered one US dollar worth 2,621,984,228,675,650,147,435,579,309,984,228 Zimbabwe dollars. At that point pretty much every Zimbabwean became a de facto trillionaire.
2020, Josh Clark, Chuck Bryant, Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things, →ISBN, page 180:A trip to Zimbabwe might make you a trillionaire.
2015, Lonely Planet, Lonely Planet Kids: The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World, →ISBN, page 137:Masiyiwa went on to become Zimbabwe's first US-dollar billionaire, despite the negative machinations of the Mugabe regime. In contrast to this extraordinary achievement is the reality that millions of his compatriots became instant Zimbabwe-dollar trillionaires at the height of the country's hyperinflation in 2008.
2018, Geoffrey Nyarota, The Graceless Fall of Robert Mugabe: The End of a Dictator's Reign, Penguin Random House South Africa, →ISBN:Countless Zimbabweans had the dubious distinction of being trillionaires in 2008.
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(figuratively) Synonym of gazillionaire (“an incredibly rich person”).
Who cares what that guy thinks? He may be a trillionaire, but he can’t buy good taste.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| trillionaires | Number=Plur | lexicographic |
Coordinates
billionaire · billionaire · millionaire · millionaire · quadrillionaire · quadrillionaire
Deriveds
trillionairess · multitrillionaire
Hypernyms
natural person · person · natural person · person · natural person · person
Synonyms
Translations (31)
ka ტრილიონერი (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · fi biljonääri (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · sv biljonär (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · es trillonaria (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · nn billionær (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · es trillonario (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ru триллионе́рша (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · nb billionær (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · de Billionär (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ar تْرِلْيُونِير (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ja トリリオネア (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · tr trilyoner (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ar بِلْيُونِير (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · el τρισεκατομμυριούχος (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · de Billionärin (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ro trilionar (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ja 兆万長者 (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · vi nghìn tỉ phú (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · vi tỉ phú nghìn tỉ (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · es billonario (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · cs bilionář (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · da billionær (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · uk трильйоне́р (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · pl bilioner (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · cmn 兆萬富翁 /兆万富翁 (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · pt trilionário (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ru триллионе́р (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · id trilyuner (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · fa تیلیاردر (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · fa تریلیونر (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units) · ko 조만장자 (person whose wealth is at least one trillion currency units)