Tesla CEO Elon Musk Calls COVID-19 Testing a 'License to Print Money,' Spending About $56 Billion

Urian B., Tech Times 27 October 2020, 03:10 am

COVID-19 could be the first thought people would think when looking back at 2020 as the year is almost over. It's impossible to forget the impact that the coronavirus has had not only on the global health scale but also on an economical scale. While certain industries are getting richer like the e-commerce industry, others are suffering like those industries that require physical contact.

COVID-19 testing spending adds up to a total of $56 billion by the end of the year

According to a tweet by TL @tlowdon it was stated that those currently in the testing industry are doing pretty good in business as of the moment. The United States now leads the world when it comes to the number of SARS-CoV-2 tests that are done per capita.

The tweet states that there is an average of 1.1 million tests being done per day from the data that was presented last week. The average price of the testing kits cost $140.59 per individual piece so this would mean that the expected annual amount that would be spent on COVID-19 testing should be at $56 Billion at the end of this year!

The data was computed based on the original COVID-19 test prices as well as payment policies back in July 15, 2020 while the average amount of tests per day were based on a recent 7-day average as of October 24, 2020.

Elon Musk quickly commented on the post calling it a 'license to print money'

This caught the eye of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Billionaire Elon Musk who gave a reply stating that testing for the known COVID-19 is actually a "license to print money" noting that the COVID-19 testing business is truly profitable at this moment.

Although a number of industries have been struggling, there are a number of COVID-19 related industries that have been making a profit from the whole pandemic. An article by Bloomberg was previously published circulating around a new billionaire coming from Malaysia due to the supply or rubber gloves which were mostly used to combat the virus.

Testing for covid is a license to print money — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2020

Others who profited from the pandemic

The known Wong Teek Son, who previously co-founded Riverstone Holdings Ltd. back in the 1980s after his work as a research chemist has recently become Malaysia's fifth billionaire due to glove manufacturing. His net worth rose to $1.2 billion as the shares of his company were able to skyrocket almost sixfold in August as compared to the all time law in March.

This growth in profits, however, is not as amazing as how Amazon and Tesla were able to rise way up even topping the previous known "richest men in the world" Bill Gates and Warren Buffet.