The total population of Greenland is approximately 57,000. Elon Musk is currently worth about $425.2 billion.
Which means that for the low price of just $57 billion, Musk could offer everyone in Greenland a million bucks and simply buy it. (And he’d still have about $375 billion left over.)
There’s precedent for these multibillion-dollar, blockbuster purchases: In 2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. Who knew Greenland was hypothetically worth just $13 billion more than Twitter?
Of course, when he bought Twitter, Musk was “only” worth a paltry $219 billion. (Poor guy.) So, that $44 billion represented a much larger percentage of his wealth than buying Greenland would today.
Theoretically, there’s nothing to prevent Musk from buying the land on his own — and then reselling it to the U.S. government. (In exchange, perhaps, for exclusive rare earth mining rights?) Musk is actually wealthy enough to pull it off without being unduly leveraged.
Financial experts typically recommend that you allocate no more than 25% to 40% of your net worth on housing, although the Biden-Harris real estate market has made that benchmark unrealistic for most young people. Well, $57 billion is only about 15% of Musk’s net worth.
Which means, it’s easier for Musk to buy Greenland than the average American to buy their first home! (Three cheers for Bidenomics!)
Money talks. Money is power. Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest man; the United States of America is the world’s wealthiest country. Working together, they absolutely could acquire Greenland.
And sure, there might be a handful of native Greenlanders with strong cultural connections to their homeland. That’s to be expected. But under this plan, a Greenlandic family of five would get $5 million bucks! Throw in a five-pack of American citizenship cards, an apartment in Palm Beach, and maybe complimentary membership at Mar-a-Lago, and Greenland will be empty in less than an hour.
Trust me: I live in Tampa Bay, Fla. NOBODY is gonna choose Greenland over Florida! (Believe it or not, the University of Central Florida ALONE has more enrolled students than the total population of Greenland.)
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Our European friends and allies have responded to Trump’s Greenland overtures with their snooty, buttoned-up bloviation and/or righteous indignation: Germany declared that “borders must not be moved by force” because the permanency of borders is “fundamental international law.”
Meanwhile, France spat out a snail and puffed out her chest: “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warned a reporter, “We are a strong continent; we must become stronger.”
But other than talking tough, there’s not much European countries can do. They’ve outsourced their military spending to the United States for so long, that they don’t have enough sabers to do any rattling. Even with Putin eyeing Ukraine and gobbling up territory, too many NATO nations have stubbornly refused to pay their fair share.
Germany turned a blind eye for as long as it could, unwilling to forego that Russki petro. They put their economic interests ahead of everything else.
Of course, they weren’t the only ones. Germany had plenty of company.
In 2024, the United States spent $755 billion to fund our military. The rest of NATO combined spent only $430 billion. About 10 of the NATO nations (including vocal “partners,” like Canada) are paying significantly less than the agreed-upon 2% basement.
Over in Europe, their sacrosanct “sovereign borders” have been repeatedly violated by refugees, immigrants, and asylum-seekers. European borders have changed constantly and repeatedly. Frankly, it sounds like Europeans are more nervous about Trump’s territorial ambitions than Putin’s.
And furthermore, if the people of Greenland decide they’d like to join the United States of America, who the hell is Denmark to tell ‘em they can’t? We’re not in the age of kingdoms and colonies anymore. The natives of Greenland should have the freedom to blaze their own trail — even if the Danes disagree.
There’s something rotten in Denmark. Fortunately, Trump and Musk are arriving with Tupperware.
Plus, a whole lot of money.
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