DISPATCHES FROM TOMORROW — The prediction markets have rendered a verdict audacious enough to stop the presses: Elon Musk, already the wealthiest man alive by most tallies, stands a three-in-four chance of crossing the trillion-dollar threshold, according to current Kalshi exchange pricing. The market's confidence is not a whisper — it is a shout.

Musk's fortune, estimated variously between $200 billion and $300 billion depending on the quarter's tempers, would need to triple or quadruple before the historic marker is reached. Market consensus at 76% suggests the engines most likely to power that ascent are already in motion: SpaceX, whose valuation climbs with each Starship ambition realized, Tesla's expanding energy and autonomous-vehicle divisions, and the still-young xAI venture, whose appetite for computing infrastructure grows by the fortnight. Prediction markets, it should be noted, are wagering on trajectory as much as on present circumstance.