Elon Musk is expected to become the first trillionaire in history very soon.

 Elon Musk has the potential to become the first trillionaire in history thanks to his vast empire, which includes everything from social media and electric cars to space rockets and tiny brain implants.

Due to his business achievements, Musk has amassed significant influence and controversy worldwide. With a wealth believed to be worth close to $250 billion, the CEO of Tesla is currently the richest person on the planet.

As of right now, Musk may become the first trillionaire in history; according to Informa Connect Academy, he is expected to achieve this milestone by 2027.

According to Informa, Musk is the "clear favorite" to reach the $1 trillion mark first because of his impressive growth in net worth, which has been averaging 110% annual growth.

Musk is not without rivals, though.

In 2028, Jensen Huang might become a trillionaire thanks to the rapid ascent of Nvidia, the company whose computer chips are driving the artificial intelligence boom, according to Informa. Bloomberg claims that Huang, the CEO and co-founder of Nvidia, is worth $104 billion.

By 2028, Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is expected to reach the status of trillionaire.

The future of Musk's greatest achievement, Tesla, will largely determine whether he reaches the trillion-dollar milestone first or at all.

With a market valuation of roughly $710 billion, Musk's electric vehicle manufacturer has emerged as the most valuable car company in the world. As a result, its value exceeds the combined values of Coca-Cola, Bank of America, and Boeing.

Easily Musk's greatest asset is Tesla. At current prices, he holds a nearly 13% stake in the company, worth approximately $93 billion.

Another 303 million stock options are owned by Musk in connection with his remarkable and contentious compensation package, which was overturned by a judge before being reinstated and approved by shareholders.

Musk's wealth might surpass $1 trillion if Tesla keeps growing.

“We believe Musk has positioned himself to achieve new heights over the coming years as Tesla capitalizes on full self-driving, Robotaxis and the future of EVs,” Dan Ives, senior equity analyst at Wedbush Securities, told in an email.

Of course, that is no guarantee.

Tesla faces fierce competition, especially from cheaper rivals in China. The company has struggled at times, with softer sales crashing the stock by two-thirds in 2022. The automaker also issued multiple recalls for its vehicles, including a software recall of nearly all of its cars on US roads because of a glitchy Autopilot feature.

In 2008, Musk disclosed that Tesla was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy until it managed to obtain an emergency loan to maintain its operations.

Musk also got into trouble with authorities and investors in 2018 when he claimed to have "funding secured" for a plan to take Tesla private for $420 per share. Musk was compelled to resign as executive chairman and pay millions of dollars in fines and legal costs.

Ives stated, "Musk has turned Tesla around despite the haters and skeptics on numerous occasions when he has had his back to the wall with Tesla." "He's the kid from Teflon."

Risks associated with the controversy that has surrounded Musk for years also affect the Tesla brand.

Just this past week, Musk removed a post in which he questioned why President Joe Biden and the Vice President have not experienced any apparent assassination attempts, while former President Donald Trump has experienced two.

Musk stated in the post, "And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala 🤔." After saying the post was a joke, he removed it.

Musk has many assets, but Tesla is by no means his sole one. In addition, he has investments in the artificial intelligence startup xAI and the tunnel construction company The Boring Company.

Then there is SpaceX, a spacecraft manufacturer that achieved a first on Thursday when it successfully completed the first-ever non-government spacewalk.

According to Bloomberg, Musk owns roughly 42% of SpaceX, a privately held business that was valued at an astounding $210 billion in June.

Additionally, Musk owns Neuralink, a startup focused on brain chip implants that aims to restore movement to paralyzed individuals.

A portion of Musk's income also originates from social media platform X, which is arguably his most contentious venture. In 2022, Musk purchased X, formerly known as Twitter, having initially attempted to back out of the $44 billion agreement.

Additionally, since being owned by Musk, X has quickly lost value and drawn criticism for both its policies regarding content moderation and the dissemination of false information, in addition to Musk's own antisemitic tweets.

Earlier in the year, Musk told advertisers to "go f**k yourself" while also apologizing for what he considered to be his "dumbest" ever social media post.

India now has a ballistic missile submarine equipped with a nuclear drive. Can it, however, overtake China?

Late last month, India added its second nuclear-capable ballistic missile submarine to its fleet. The government claims this strengthens India's nuclear deterrent as New Delhi looks wary of both China and Pakistan.

But as the People's Liberation Army expands its fleet and its air and land capabilities amid simmering tensions along their shared border, India is still lagging behind, at least in comparison to China.

During an August 29 commissioning ceremony at Visakhapatnam naval base, the headquarters of India's Eastern Naval Command on the Bay of Bengal coast, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh stated that the nuclear-powered sub, INS Arighaat, or "Destroyer of the Enemy" in Sanskrit, will "help in establishing strategic balance" in the region.

With the largest navy in the world in terms of numbers, China presently holds the upper hand. Its six operational Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic submarines outclass the two Indian vessels in the same class, Arighaat and INS Arihant, in terms of firepower.

The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a non-profit organization that supports the development and deployment of missile defense for the United States and its allies, claims that the Chinese subs are capable of carrying twelve ballistic missiles with a minimum range of 8,000 kilometers (4,970 miles) and multiple nuclear warheads.

According to an analysis by the open-source intelligence agency Janes, Arighaat and Arihant are both 366 feet long and have a displacement of 6,000 tons. They are equipped with K-15 Sagarika ballistic missiles, which can be fired from four vertical launch tubes. However, it is believed that the nuclear-tipped K-15 can only hit targets within 750 kilometers (466 miles) of its Indian Ocean location.

The coastal waters of the northern Bay of Bengal are dangerously shallow for a submarine, and the INS Arihant-class can hardly reach Chinese targets along the eastern Sino-Indian border, according to analyst Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.

The Line of Actual Control, which serves as the de facto border between China and India, has long been a source of tension between the two countries. The most recent battles there between the two sides occurred in 2022 and 2020, when at least 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers lost their lives in hand-to-hand combat in Aksai Chin.

India is advancing its capacity for second strikes.

Only "technological advancements undertaken indigenously on this submarine make it significantly more advanced than its predecessor," which was put into service eight years ago, is all the Indian government has revealed about the Arighaat's capabilities.

Since Arighaat was commissioned on August 29, India has not even released images of the project.

According to naval analysts, India is undoubtedly on track to build a submerged nuclear deterrent that, although it might not be as powerful as China's, will be sufficient to prevent Beijing from acting hostilely against it in the event of a second strike.

India is developing larger, more modern submarines with longer-range missiles. Analysts estimate that those missiles' ranges could reach 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles), allowing them to launch strikes across all of China.

Matt Korda, associate director for the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, stated, "Although India's sea-based nuclear deterrent remains in relative infancy, the country clearly has an ambition to field a sophisticated naval nuclear force with ballistic missile submarines at its core."

"With its eventual third and fourth submarines (which will have more missile tubes and longer-range missiles), India will be able to hold both Pakistani and Chinese targets at risk, as these submarines are a key piece of its broader efforts to establish a secure second-strike nuclear force," Korda wrote in an email.

If past performance is any indication, India may have to wait a few years before deploying its next ballistic missile submarines. Launched nearly seven years ago, Arighaat won't enter service until 2030 if the same period of time from launch to commissioning is followed by the next Indian ballistic missile sub.

The SSBNs' prestige

Nevertheless, according to Tom Shugart, a former US Navy submarine commander and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, having a second ballistic missile submarine does have some positive effects on India's naval and military mindset.

Shugart stated, "It is a marker of being a great power," citing the fact that all five UN Security Council members—the US, Russia, China, the UK, and France—have ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

Shugart believes that having four boats in each of the two smallest SSBN fleets—Britain and France—is the bare minimum for maintaining a vessel at sea at all times.

Submarines with nuclear propulsion are intricate devices. Work can take up to a month when things break and need to be repaired, or when routine maintenance is required.

For example, the US Navy's Pacific Fleet reports that the Ohio-class SSBNs spend an average of 77 days at sea and 35 days in port for maintenance.

 

 

According to US Navy records, a nuclear reactor's refit and overhaul can take up to 27 months.

"The likelihood that India will be able to maintain one of them at sea in a viable state increases with the number of them," Shugart stated.

He added, "But it's probably going to take more boats than the two we have now to keep one at sea at all times."

A cautious China

The Arighaat was gaining attention in China prior to its commissioning; the state-run newspaper Global Times quoted anonymous Chinese experts as stating that India shouldn't "use it to flex muscles."

According to the Global Times report, "nuclear weapons should be used in safeguarding peace and stability, not in nuclear blackmail or muscle flexing."

According to other analysts, Beijing, which currently possesses the greatest fleet in the world in terms of total number of ships, is the only reason why New Delhi is acting more firmly.

Other nations in the region, including India, view China's massive naval buildup and the Type 094 submarines' (the Jin class) frequent deployment of fully armed nuclear deterrence patrols as a threat, according to Kandlikar Venkatesh, an analyst with the GlobalData analytics company.

"India will be able to compete with China to some extent with the deployment of Arihant-class submarines," he stated, adding that an additional $31.6 billion will be invested in submarines over the next ten years.

According to Venkatesh, India is working on larger submarines and missiles with a greater range. Eventually, the country may have nuclear-tipped weapons that can travel up to 12,000 kilometers, or nearly 7,500 miles.

One more rival in the region

India is looking at other countries as well as China for its subdevelopment, says Abhijit Singh, a senior fellow at the Mumbai-based Observer Research Foundation.

In an opinion piece for the Hindustan Times, Singh stated, "The real impetus for India's expansion of its second-strike capability is, in fact, the significant growth of the Pakistani and Chinese navies in the Indian Ocean." He also mentioned that Islamabad is currently modernizing its fleet by acquiring eight attack submarines of the Type 039B design built by China.

Singh stated that Pakistan "continues to narrow the sea-power differential with India."

The disputed and heavily militarized region of Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety, has long been the source of animosity between them. It is separated between New Delhi and Islamabad by a de facto border known as the Line of Control. Between the two countries, the disagreement has sparked three wars.

 

China continues to be one of Pakistan's most significant foreign backers and an important source of investment.

Fears of proliferation

The Federation of American Scientists expert, Korda, says he is more concerned about the multiple-warhead missiles carried by the subs than he is about the subs themselves.

According to Korda, this technology, called Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRV), is applicable to land-based missiles as well and has the potential to be destabilizing.

He claims that "China, India, and Pakistan are all developing missiles that can carry multiple warheads."

With great fanfare, India declared in April that it had successfully tested its own intercontinental ballistic missile, the Agni-V, and had joined the MIRV club, which also includes the US, UK, France, Russia, and China.

Pakistan has also asserted that it possesses MIRV technology, although experts dispute this assertion.

In order to avoid being caught off guard in the event of a real conflict, adversaries should presume that such claims are accurate.

"These systems are the first weapons that would probably be targeted in an opposing first strike, but they are also ideal first-strike weapons," claims Korda.

As a result, as nations work to construct missile defenses and conventional strike options that can counter them, their deployment throughout the region is expected to accelerate the collective arms race.

 

  

Six British diplomats are expelled by Russia in a dispute over long-range weapons

 As London and the US consider allowing Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia, Russia has revoked the accreditation of six British diplomats and accused them of spying on Moscow, it emerged on Friday. This represents a new geopolitical escalation that was reported in Russian state media.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow asserted, without offering any supporting documentation, that it had seen "signs of intelligence and subversive work" by the diplomats and that their activities "threaten the security of the Russian Federation."

Later, Britain claimed that the expulsion had taken place last month and called the charges "completely baseless." The British government is currently in the process of replacing the diplomats who departed Russia several weeks ago.

The action was made public a few hours after US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington, DC, to discuss loosening sanctions on Ukraine's capacity to use Western weapons to attack Russian territory.

Since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Russia claimed, the Foreign Office of Britain has changed into an organization whose "main task is to inflict a strategic defeat on our country."

The identities of the six diplomats that the nation had expelled were later revealed by Russian state media.

In a statement released on Friday, the Foreign Office stated that the expulsions were carried out in reaction to fresh directives that the previous British government had announced in May. The Russian defense attaché was sent out by Rishi Sunak's administration that same month, who called him "an undeclared military intelligence officer."

The British Foreign Office declared on Friday that "the accusations made today by the FSB against our staff are completely baseless."

It went on, "We have no qualms about defending our national interests."

The move's delayed announcement in Russia seemed to have been planned to align with Starmer's meeting with Biden. This meeting came after British Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Kyiv and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Following Kyiv's unexpected incursion into the Russian border region of Kursk, Zelensky's administration has been pressuring both nations to permit the Ukrainian military to fire long-range Western weapons deep into Russian territory.

Biden has hinted at a new level of willingness to let Ukraine launch missiles supplied by the West at targets located far inside Russia.

Prior to Starmer and Biden's meeting, US officials stated they did not anticipate Biden would quickly approve the use of US-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, against targets inside Russia that are far from the Ukrainian border. The question of whether the US could approve Ukraine's use of comparable systems offered by Britain and France is being debated.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin forewarned NATO leaders that any attempt to remove the restrictions would be viewed as an act of war.

This will imply that NATO members, which include the US and several European nations, are at war with Russia. And if that's the case, we will respond appropriately to any threats that are posed to us, taking into account the shift in the conflict's fundamental nature, Putin informed reporters.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Britain and Moscow have reciprocated diplomatic restrictions and sanctions, with Moscow regularly matching each other's actions at pivotal points in its conflict with Ukraine. In the last two years, Russia has prohibited a number of British lawmakers, officials, and journalists from entering its borders.