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Elon Musk has a internet value of round $638 billion, in accordance with Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
His internet value is intently tied to Tesla’s share worth, however the tech mogul’s wealth comes from a number of sources and sometimes fluctuates. He crossed over the $600 billion threshold in December following an $800 billion valuation of SpaceX.
Which means Musk frequently trades locations with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison for the title of world’s richest particular person.
How has Musk’s internet value modified over time?
Musk, who was born in South Africa, moved to Canada and dropped out of a Ph.D. at Stanford, grew to become a millionaire earlier than he hit 30. Musk began Zip2, a web site that offered metropolis journey guides to newspapers, together with his brother Kimbal Musk, and offered it to Compaq for greater than $300 million in 1999. Musk, then aged 27, is believed to have gotten $22 million from the deal.
He went on to cofound on-line financial institution X.com in 1999. It quickly merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity to turn out to be PayPal, and the corporate was purchased for $1.5 billion by eBay in 2002. Regardless of having been ousted as CEO, Musk walked away with round $165 million.
Musk cofounded space-exploration firm SpaceX in 2002. In 2004, he grew to become an investor in and the chairman of EV firm Tesla.
Throughout the monetary disaster in 2008, he saved Tesla from chapter with a $40 million funding and a $40 million mortgage. That very same yr, he was named Tesla’s CEO.
Musk mentioned 2008 was “the worst yr of my life.” Alongside issues in his private life, Tesla stored shedding cash and SpaceX was having hassle launching the primary model of its Falcon rocket. By 2009, Musk was residing off private loans.
Tesla went public in 2010, although, and Musk’s estimated internet value steadily climbed. In 2012, he debuted on Forbes’ Billionaires Record with an estimated wealth of $2 billion.
In 2016, Musk arrange the tunnel-digging enterprise, the Boring Firm.
The following yr, he based the neurotechnology startup Neuralink.
Musk’s internet value started a speedy ascent at first of the pandemic as Tesla inventory costs soared. Musk began 2020 with an estimated internet value of just below $30 billion and was value round $170 billion only a yr later — a greater than five-fold enhance in only a yr. His estimated fortune peaked at round $340 billion in November 2021.
Musk additionally purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, serving as its CEO till he stepped down in early June 2023.
The inventory is thought to be unstable and has had its ups and downs since then.
The morning of Trump’s reelection on November 6, 2024, which Musk closely campaigned for, Tesla’s inventory was up about 15%, for example.
Following an insider share sale at SpaceX, which boosted the startup to a $350 billion valuation, Musk’s wealth surged once more in December 2024 by about $50 billion in at some point, making Musk the first billionaire to achieve the $400 billion mark.
However within the months following its election highs, Tesla’s inventory dropped by over 50% following a variety of components, together with a car gross sales hunch, a rising Tesla boycott motion, and Musk’s stint within the US authorities, which some buyers felt took him away from his day-in-day-out Tesla CEO duties.
Tesla’s inventory rose again up following the CEO taking a step again from his function within the Division of Authorities Effectivity, nevertheless it continues to have huge swings. Musk had one among his single-day highest internet value losses in June 2025 following a public spat on social media with the President, by which Trump floated the thought of getting his authorities contracts revoked, and Musk repeatedly criticized Trump’s “Huge Stunning Invoice.”
The inventory has since rebounded and was up over 25% in 2025 as of December.
Musk’s internet value reached unprecedented heights in December 2025, as Musk confirmed SpaceX was planning an IPO. After an insider share sale valued the non-public firm at $800 billion, Musk’s estimated internet value surpassed $600 billion.
Musk was the primary billionaire to have reached a internet value of over $500 billion, in accordance with Forbes, making him one step nearer to turning into the world’s first trillionaire.
The place does Musk’s fortune come from?
Musk’s wealth is essentially depending on Tesla shares. Although he takes no wage from Tesla, he is awarded inventory choices when the corporate hits difficult efficiency metrics.
Musk’s earlier $55 billion compensation plan was voided in January 2024 on the grounds that Musk had undue affect over the bundle and its approval attributable to shut ties with a number of board members. At its annual shareholder assembly in 2024, buyers voted to approve Musk’s pay bundle. Nonetheless, the choose upheld the unique ruling, and the corporate has since appealed the choice.
A compensation bundle Tesla proposed for its CEO in September 2025 may flip Musk into the primary trillionaire. The unprecedented plan included a brand new set of 12 milestones to be accomplished over a 10-year interval, comparable to boosting the corporate’s valuation to $8.5 trillion, promoting 12 million vehicles, getting 1,000,000 robotaxis on the highway, and arising with a succession plan.
A big a part of Musk’s internet value comes from Tesla shares, whereas roughly over 20% comes from SpaceX inventory.
The remainder of his wealth comes from shares in Twitter and The Boring Firm, in addition to different miscellaneous liabilities.