Not gold, GDP, military strength or rare earths: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, says this hidden metric reveals true economic strength

Elon Musk says electricity production is the best way to judge the strength of a large economy. His post on X drew millions of views. Musk runs Tesla, SpaceX and X, and Forbes ranks him as the world’s richest person.

He set aside the usual yardsticks: gold reserves, GDP, military power and rare earths.

Musk pointed to a World Bank chart from 2021. It plots electricity use per person against GDP per person for each country.


Somalia, Burundi, Tanzania and Nigeria sit at the low end on both measures. Norway, the United States and the United Kingdom sit near the top. No wealthy country appears among the low electricity users.

Two numbers rising together don’t show which one drives the other. Rich countries can afford more power plants. More power also lets a country run more factories, offices and data centers.

There’s a smaller mismatch too. The chart measures consumption, while Musk’s post talks about production. The two figures are close but not identical.

Still, a country that wants a bigger economy will probably need a bigger power supply.

Four economies, four different pictures

China’s electricity demand reached 10,573 TWh in 2025, about a third of the world’s total. That’s more than double US demand (4,536 TWh) and five times India’s (2,083 TWh).

The EU’s total is harder to find in one place. Ember reports that renewables supplied 1,331 TWh, or 47.7% of EU electricity in 2025. That implies roughly 2,800 TWh of generation.

Per person, the order changes. US demand reached 13.1 MWh per person, 75% above China’s 7.5 MWh and more than three times the world average of 3.9 MWh. The EU sits at 6.2 MWh. India is at 1.4 MWh, the lowest among the ten largest power markets.

An average American uses more than nine times as much electricity as an average Indian. India has the world’s third-largest power sector, yet the gap per person is still wide.

Taken literally, Musk’s metric would put China first on scale and the US first per head. Whether either makes it “stronger” is something the chart can’t answer.

Gold, military spending and rare earths tell different stories

Other measures capture different forms of national strength. The US held about 8,134 tonnes of official gold reserves in the latest reported 2026 data. China's holdings were about 2,322 tonnes and India's roughly 881 tonnes.

Within the EU, Germany held about 3,350 tonnes, Italy 2,452 tonnes and France 2,437 tonnes.

Military spending produces another ranking. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated 2025 spending at $954 billion for the US, $336 billion for China and $92.1 billion for India.

Separately, the European Defence Agency reported that EU member states spent €418 billion collectively in 2025.

Rare earths reveal the importance of industrial supply chains. The US Geological Survey estimates that China mined 270,000 tonnes of rare-earth minerals in 2025, compared with 51,000 tonnes in the US and 2,900 tonnes in India. The EU does not appear among the major producers in the USGS table.

These minerals are used in products such as electric motors, electronics and wind turbines.

Where the numbers are heading

The IEA expects global electricity demand to grow 3.6% a year from 2026 to 2030. The pace differs by economy.

India is projected at 6.4% a year, and air conditioning alone should account for over 20% of its growth. China is forecast to add about 2,600 TWh by 2030, roughly the EU’s entire current consumption. China’s annual growth is expected to slow to 4.9%.

The US is growing more slowly in percentage terms but for a different reason. Demand is forecast to rise nearly 2% a year, with roughly half of the added demand tied to data centers.

The EU is the slowest. Demand is forecast to grow 2.3% a year, about 300 TWh in total, and is not expected to return to its 2021 level before 2028.

These are forecasts, not measurements.

Why AI makes power the real limit

Pat Gelsinger, the former CEO of Intel, made a related point in comments reported by a16z. He said US electricity generation may become the real bottleneck for AI. His question was blunt: why build a data center and buy a million GPUs if you can’t power them?

The IEA’s numbers show the scale. Data centers used about 415 TWh in 2024, around 1.5% of world demand. That’s set to more than double to about 945 TWh by 2030. The US accounted for 45% of data center consumption in 2024, China 25% and Europe 15%.

The range is wide. By 2035, the IEA’s scenarios span from 700 to 1,700 TWh.

Generation isn’t the only constraint. More than 2,500 GW of projects are stuck in grid connection queues worldwide.

Gelsinger has also praised nuclear power and criticized how much the US relies on China for renewables. The data shows both halves of that concern. The US is the world’s largest nuclear generator, at 785 TWh in 2025. But China’s solar output that year was 1,175 TWh, three times the US figure of 389 TWh.