When Elon Musk’s fortunes don’t make the headlines, his political and tech shenanigans tend to keep him in the public eye – whether it’s rebranding Twitter as X, or his very public feud with US president Donald Trump.
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.
According to Forbes, Elon Musk’s net worth is $495 billion. He recently crossed the $500 billion mark, albeit briefly, meaning Musk is now halfway to becoming the world’s first trillionaire.
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Breaking down Elon Musk’s net worth
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 is now worth $400 billion, per Forbes, and Musk has a stake of roughly 42% in the company, worth $168 billion.
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 £1.13 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.
There’s also xAI Holdings, formed in March 2025 by merging X/Twitter with his new artificial intelligence company xAI. The deal valued the company at $113 billion, and Musk owns an estimated 53% stake.
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.
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”.
Musk predicted in 2015 that Tesla would launch self-driving cars within two years. After several delays and setbacks, and a decade later, robotaxis are finally on the streets.
However, in early 2025, Tesla’s shares witnessed a downward trend – largely attributed to Musk’s controversial political engagements. By 8 April, the EV maker’s share price fell nearly 42% since the start of the year.
But since then, shares have nearly doubled in price, recovering 92% in value. That has seen Tesla overtake other Magnificent Seven big tech stocks, such as Apple and Amazon, for total returns so far this year.
It’s hard to say what comes next for Elon Musk’s substantial fortunes, after former employees described Tesla as a ‘toxic’ place to work. We explore what this means for socially conscious investors in a separate piece.
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