Elon Musk has regularly been making headlines in recent years - from his acquisition of Twitter (now X) in 2022 to his role in the 2024 US election.
Despite his ventures like SpaceX and Tesla, Musk’s influence stretches far beyond the tech world – especially after his successful efforts to get Donald Trump into power. The businessman was Trump’s largest 2024 presidential campaign donor and individual donor. Musk has since been appointed as the sole leader of Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk is worth $336 billion, making him the richest person in the world. He has $100 billion more than Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is the second richest person on the list.
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We look at the various factors that led Elon Musk to where he is today.
How Elon Musk built his fortune
Born in South Africa in 1971, Musk exhibited a keen interest in technology and innovation from an early age, moving to the US at the age of 17 to attend college. His first major success came with Zip2, a company that provided online business directories and maps to newsletters – a novel concept at the time.
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 founded SpaceX to make space exploration more accessible, and with the particular aim to colonise Mars. SpaceX quickly emerged as a leader in the aerospace industry, launching satellites and resupply missions to the International Space Station.
The company made history in October 2024 as it launched Starship – the world’s most powerful rocket, according to Politico.
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 £682.07 billion.
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.
He also established The Boring Company, which focused on developing underground transportation systems.
How Elon Musk created Tesla
Tesla's success can be attributed to a variety of factors – the relentless focus on innovation, cutting-edge technology, and creating electric cars that surpassed anything else on the market.
With Tesla using artificial intelligence (AI), Musk was able to give a teaser into what people can expect from the company, even going so far as to tweet “the car has a mind”.
I think we may have figured out some aspects of AGI. The car has a mind. Not an enormous mind, but a mind nonetheless.August 7, 2023
In December 2024, Deutsche Bank said Tesla aims to start a robotaxi service, with remote teleoperators as backups for its initial run in case anything goes wrong. The service is expected to launch this year, marking another significant milestone for the electric vehicle company.
The Trillion Dollar Club’s 2024 report predicted that Tesla could surpass $1 trillion in 2025 if its annual growth rate of 173.3% continues.
However, so far in 2025, Tesla’s shares have witnessed a backward trend, largely attributed to Musk’s controversial political engagements.
On 4 March, Forbes reported Tesla’s stock closed at $272, its lowest end-of-day share price since the US election day. This has resulted in a massive drop in Musk’s net worth of $116.3 billion from a record $464 billion on 17 December 2024.
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