Four hundred billion dollars. That's the number staring back at you when you load up the Spend Elon Musk Money game. It looks like a typo. It looks like something that should have fewer zeros. But there it is — and your job is to make all of it disappear.
Most players burn through the first billion in under two minutes. Then the spending slows down. By the time you're staring at your remaining $350 billion, you realize the real challenge isn't clicking "buy." It's finding enough things to buy.
This guide breaks down proven strategies for spending the full fortune efficiently, whether you're going for speed, variety, or maximum satisfaction.
The First $10 Billion: Building Your Foundation
Start with mid-range purchases. This phase is about volume and momentum.
Best Opening Moves
- Real estate in major cities: A penthouse in Manhattan ($50M), a villa in Beverly Hills ($25M), a townhouse in London ($15M). You can easily drop $500M on properties before you even think about furniture.
- Luxury vehicles: A Bugatti La Voiture Noire ($18M), a Rolls-Royce Boat Tail ($28M), a classic Ferrari 250 GTO ($70M). Cars are satisfying because each one feels like an event.
- Art and collectibles: Original paintings, rare wine collections, vintage guitars. A single Basquiat painting can run $110M.
The goal here isn't to be strategic. It's to warm up your spending muscles and get comfortable with how fast the numbers move.
The $10B–$100B Range: Going Bigger
This is where most players get stuck. You've bought the obvious luxury items and you're still sitting on $300 billion. Time to escalate.
Major Acquisitions
- Private islands in the Caribbean: $50M–$200M each. Buy three or four.
- Professional sports franchises: An NBA team runs $2–4 billion. An NFL team? $4–6 billion. Buy one of each.
- Superyachts: A 150-meter superyacht with helicopter pad and submarine bay: $500M–$1B. Don't forget the annual maintenance budget.
- Private jets: A customized Boeing 747 runs about $400M. A Gulf Stream G700 is pocket change at $79M.
Pro Tip: Bundle Purchases
Instead of buying one item at a time, think in categories. Buy an entire fleet — five jets, three yachts, ten cars. The bundle approach helps you burn through money faster and unlocks more achievement milestones.
The $100B–$300B Range: Scale Problems
At this level, individual purchases barely move the needle. A $50M house is rounding error. You need to think in acquisitions, not items.
Corporate-Scale Spending
- Buy companies outright: Acquire a mid-size tech company ($5–20B), a hotel chain ($10–30B), or a media network ($20–50B).
- Fund a space program: Building and launching rockets isn't cheap. A single Mars mission concept could eat $50–100B.
- Build a city: Land acquisition, infrastructure, architecture — a planned city from scratch could run $200B+.
- Endow a university: A $30B endowment would make your fictional university one of the best-funded in the world.
The Stadium Strategy
One approach that works well: build a sports empire. Buy the stadium ($2B), the team ($5B), the training facility ($500M), the broadcasting rights ($3B), and a competing league ($10B). You've just spent over $20B on one coherent project — and it feels like a story, not a shopping list.
The Final $100B: The Home Stretch
This is the hardest part. You've been spending for a while, you're running low on ideas, and the balance still reads triple digits in billions.
Mega-Projects
- Terraform an island: Convert a purchased island into a self-sustaining paradise. Estimated cost: $30–50B.
- Build a particle accelerator: Real-world cost estimates for next-gen accelerators: $20–30B.
- Launch a Mars colony: Rockets, habitats, life support, supply chains. Easily $100B+ for a serious attempt.
- Cure a disease: Fund an entire research pipeline from basic science through clinical trials. Budget: $10–50B per disease.
Speedrun Strategy: How to Spend It All Fast
If your goal is purely speed — empty the account as quickly as possible — here's the optimal order:
- Buy the most expensive single items first (sports teams, superyachts, private islands)
- Move to mid-tier items in bulk (20 luxury cars, 10 penthouses)
- Fill remaining balance with smaller items (watches, electronics, gift cards)
- Use the "buy 10x" button whenever available
A skilled speedrunner can clear the full $400 billion in under 15 minutes.
Achievement Hunting: The Completionist Approach
The game rewards variety, not just volume. If you want to unlock every achievement:
- Buy at least one item from every category
- Purchase items across all price ranges (from a $5 coffee to a $5B stadium)
- Try the "balanced spender" approach: 25% real estate, 25% vehicles, 25% collectibles, 25% experiences
- Check your unlocked achievements regularly to see what you're missing
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Buying Only Cheap Items
New players sometimes get stuck buying hundreds of small items. A thousand $10,000 purchases only gets you to $10 million. You'll never finish at that rate.
Ignoring Categories
The game tracks which categories you've explored. If you only buy cars and houses, you'll miss out on achievements tied to art, technology, philanthropy, and experiences.
Forgetting Philanthropy
Donating to charity isn't just satisfying — it's often tied to special achievements. Allocate at least $10–20 billion to donations across different causes.
Why This Game Works
The genius of Spend Elon Musk Money is that $400 billion sounds infinite until you start spending it. Within minutes, you develop a strange empathy for how difficult it is to deploy capital at scale. You start understanding why real billionaires build rocket companies and buy social media platforms — there are only so yachts you can buy before you need something bigger.
The game turns an abstract number into a tangible experience. And that's what makes it worth playing — not just once, but several times, trying different strategies each round.