What is Elon Musk's net worth?

When Elon Musk’s fortunes don’t make the headlines, his shenanigans tend to keep him in the public eye – whether it’s rebranding Twitter as X, or Tesla struggling to overtake Chinese electric car companies.

Musk has been the richest person in the world since 2021 – except for the moment when Oracle’s Larry Ellison briefly surpassed him in September 2025.

We look at how Elon Musk made his billions.

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Elon Musk’s net worth over the years

Elon Musk’s net worth is $849.2 billion, according to Forbes.

In comparison, Larry Page, the second-richest person and co-founder of Google, has a fortune of $265.5 billion on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List.

Musk’s net worth has grown substantially over the past few years thanks to his various investments in the world of tech, space and manufacturing.

In 2016, he was worth $10.7 billion. Just a decade later, he has surpassed the $700 billion mark – a feat no one has achieved before – making Musk nearly three times richer than his rivals and close to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

But where did it all begin? Musk was born in South Africa on 28 June 1971. He exhibited a keen interest in technology and innovation from an early age and moved to the US at 17 to attend college.

His first major success came with Zip2, a company that provided online business directories and maps to newsletters. In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for nearly $300 million, paving the way for Musk into the tech industry.

Musk used his proceeds from the sale to launch X.com, an online payment platform that eventually evolved into PayPal. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion.

That same year, Musk used $100 million of his own fortune to start SpaceX, aiming to make space exploration more accessible and colonise Mars.

In 2004, Musk joined Tesla Motors and became the company’s CEO four years later. Under his leadership, Tesla transformed into a trailblazer in the electric vehicle market. Tesla’s revenue jumped from $12 billion in 2017 to $54 billion in 2021. At the time of writing, Tesla has a market capitalisation of £1.15 trillion.

Beyond SpaceX and Tesla, Musk has diversified his ventures into other industries. He co-founded SolarCity, a solar panel installation firm that Tesla acquired in 2016.

In February 2026, SpaceX acquired xAI in a $1.25 trillion merger, ahead of an initial public offering (IPO) later this year. The two companies announced the deal, saying that it would form “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.”

Ahead of the merger, Forbes reported that Musk added another $62 billion to his wealth after xAI Holdings raised $20 billion from private investors with a $250 billion valuation. At this rate, it looks like it won’t be long before his net worth tops $1 trillion.

Elon Musk’s other investments

While the majority of Musk’s wealth comes from his business ventures, his influence stretches far beyond the tech world.

He was a prominent Donald Trump supporter during the 2024 US elections, which resulted in Musk being appointed as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though he has since departed DOGE to focus on Tesla.

Musk has built up a vast property empire over the years. In 2020, he stated on X (formerly Twitter) that he would sell all his “physical possessions” and “own no house”. At that time, the asking prices for his seven homes were more than $100 million, according to Architectural Digest. It included a 16,000 square-foot home in Los Angeles that was built in 1990, which sold for $29 million.

After shedding his property portfolio, Musk moved into a tiny home in Boca Chica, Texas, close to the SpaceX headquarters. He wrote on Twitter/X in 2021: “My primary home is literally a ~$50K house in Boca Chica/Starbase that I rent from SpaceX.”

Musk moved into a 6,900-square-foot mansion in West Lake Hills, Texas, in 2022, worth $6 million.

The billionaire has also built his own company town called Starbase, named after his rocket launch site, on the southern tip of Texas. The city covers around 1.6 square miles and is home to some 500 people, according to the Guardian.

Musk may not spend big on property, but the same can’t be said about vehicles. The CEO of Tesla has a large collection of cars, ranging from a Ford Model T, a 1997 McLaren F1, a Tesla Roadster and the 1976 Lotus Espirit that James Bond drove in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. Musk bought it at an auction in 2013 for nearly $1 million, according to the BBC. He also owns private jets, each worth millions of dollars.

While Musk doesn’t donate his wealth as generously as other billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, he still gives away billions in shares to charities. He has an organisation called the Musk Foundation, with more than $14 billion in assets. However, The New York Times reported that the charity failed to give away the minimum amount required by law for the fourth year in a row.

How does Elon Musk manage his wealth?

With so many billions to his name, it’s not surprising that Elon Musk has a wealth manager. His fortunes are handled by Excession LLC, a single-family office formed in 2016. It’s run by James Birchall, Musk’s trusted advisor and CEO of Neuralink.

We explore whether you should get a financial adviser, and how much you should be paying them in separate pieces.