The short version
Can Elon Musk Buy My City? is a collaborative research project that asks a deliberately absurd question — could a single billionaire buy everything in a city, at market rate? — and tries to answer it for real. People and an AI research agent work together to value a city’s physical assets across four categories, Land, Buildings, Parks, and Monuments, and compare the total to a billionaire’s net worth. It’s part art, part research, part proof of concept for a different way of using AI: many humans steering one agent, instead of one human commanding many.
Fast facts
- What it is: a public, collaborative, human-in-the-loop AI valuation of cities.
- The question: can one billionaire buy an entire city, at market-clearing prices?
- How values are built: an AI agent researches public data and proposes numbers; a human reviews and commits each one. Every value is a single number with a confidence level — no ranges.
- The categories: Land, Buildings, Parks, Monuments.
- Transparency: every number is backed by citations, and the conversations behind it are public and auditable.
- Who’s behind it: Luke Finsaas, under StudioRampage (studiorampage.com), based in Amsterdam.
Using the data
The dataset is collaborative and public. You’re welcome to write about it, quote figures, and link back. Please note that the numbers are speculative estimates produced by an AI agent with human review — provocations meant to make hyperwealth legible, not appraisals. A link back to the relevant city page lets readers see the citations and reasoning for themselves.
Media contact
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