Will The First Trillionaire Come From AI Or Clean Energy? Two Billionaires Make Opposite Bets

Microsoft Corp. Co-Founder Bill Gates became a billionaire in 1987 at age 31. He was the youngest self-made billionaire until Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg became one at age 23.

It took business magnate Warren Buffett until age 56 to amass his first billion. Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corp., was 49. Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk was 41, and Amazon.com Inc. Founder Jeff Bezos was 35.

Each of these industry leaders has grown his wealth by tens of billions — sometimes well over $100 billion — in the years since.

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But only one of them may have a real shot at becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

According to angel investor Chamath Palihapitiya, himself a billionaire, the world’s first trillionaire will be made fighting climate change.

In the years since he tweeted this 2020 prediction, markets seem to have validated his view. Clean energy companies like Tesla Motors Inc. have outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 2-to-1, while the three top-performing stocks of the last five years have specialized in renewable energy. One of them, Enphase Energy Inc. ENPH has returned over 10,000%.

Each of these billionaires is ramping up their exposure to clean energy investments in a big way. In a recent earnings report, Buffett trumpeted the fact that Berkshire Hathaway’s clean energy utility has increased its earnings by 2,900% to $4 billion as it became a leading force in wind and solar transmission. Ellison bought a Hawaiian island to bring clean energy to it. And Zuckerberg joined forces with Gates in 2015 to launch the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to invest billions of dollars in clean energy projects around the world.

Artificial intelligence (AI) investments have been on a tear over the last few months, as advances in the technology threaten to disrupt entire industries. Now billionaire Mark Cuban — who made his fortune by grasping the early importance of the internet — predicts that AI, and not clean energy, will crown the first trillionaire.

According to Cuban, Google has ramped up its AI use in recent months and achieved $9 billion in extra revenue so far as a result. But these are still the early days of the revolution — perhaps akin to the year 1993 for the internet.

According to Cuban, humanity “will see more technological advances over the next 10 years than we have over the last 30. It’s going to blow everything else away.”

For Investors: Whatever the industry, it’s clear these two are referring to making this money in the world of startups–The same place Gates and Cuban made their billions. Whether it’s AI startups or Clean Energy startups, startup investing can be a great way to diversify a portfolio.

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