Did you miss out on the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO)? Perhaps you missed the cutoff altogether or failed to get your desired allocation of shares, given its fourfold oversubscription? In either case, you can still look forward to subsequent opportunities to get involved in the investment story du jour.

While most IPOs trigger a period of volatility the expectation with this one is that it will be sharper and more protracted. Given the huge level of attention, limited allocation available to UK retail investors and the staggered timeline for expected trading (selling as lockups expire and buying as the underlying indices of various tracker funds bring the stock onto their benchmarks), investors can expect swings in SpaceX’s share price to continue through the second half of the year, at least.

Lynn Hutchinson, head of ETF and index solutions at Charles Stanley, said: “It’s [not only] one of the most talked about stocks of the last few months but retail investors quite like a new stock becoming available. Plus it’s got the ‘Elon Musk factor’ – who has a huge retail fanbase as well, albeit not across the board. Many investors have wanted access to this company for years.”

Multiple buying opportunities as shares are released

Funds tracking the Nasdaq-100 will be among the first index funds to include SpaceX, in line with newly amended rules.

These include fast-tracked entry, allowing inclusion to Nasdaq’s flagship index fund 15 days after an IPO instead of the previous window of three months, and removal of its minimum float requirements. A three times multiplier will be introduced; rather than the currently tradable market cap – or free-float – of $75 billion, the stock will be weighted based on a market cap of $225 billion, which could force passive investors to chase the stock, further fuelling volatility across the index as a whole.

Index providers MSCI and FTSE Russell will include SpaceX after 10 and five trading days, respectively.

S&P 500 index funds will include SpaceX later after S&P Dow Jones Indices confirmed it won’t fast-track the company’s inclusion in the index.

“There will be an initial dash for the shares because of the limited availability but after that, the next release will likely be after Q2 earnings, so more shares will likely come on between July and September, if indeed the holders (employees and early investors) decide to sell them,” said Hutchinson.

Early investors, staff and other insiders are subject to staged lockups to manage supply and demand, she added.

“It looks like it will be staged, with some released earlier, and the full lockup expiration after 180 days. We expect it will be staggered and therefore volatile for several months yet.”

She said clients had been in touch asking whether they should sell the Nasdaq in favour of something else. But she warned investors not to get carried away, reminding that the allocations within many of these funds would be tiny, given the 5% expected free-float stock being made available.

“Perhaps as it gets further along and if the stock’s still really volatile, it might make more of a difference. But at the moment we’re looking at, in some cases, 0.2% to 1% depending on which index it’s going into because there’s not enough free-float available.”

Hutchinson urged investors to think about the underlying inclusion criteria, whether they’re looking at a broader index fund or a specialist thematic exchange-traded fund (ETF).

“The VanEck Space Innovators ETF (LON: JEDG) is the largest space ETF by assets under management, which you’d expect [SpaceX] to go in, but it’s unlikely to go into that until September because it’s got a 10% requirement of free-float, and there won’t be 10%. It will go in at some stage, and I guess they’ll look at it around September again.”

Speaking to MoneyWeek, Moritz Henkel, product manager at VanEck EU, concurred; the company said it will wait until the September review before deciding if SpaceX will be added to the ETF, subject to it meeting the criteria at that time.

“There will be no pre-IPO or super fast-track inclusion, nor rule change,” he said.

From a governance perspective, his team believes any new company should be assessed against the full set of index rules, not on an ad hoc basis, especially because increased volatility makes it more difficult to find a fair price in the beginning.

“For us, it’s more important to stick to defined rules and have a consistent rules-based exposure than to chase this early onboarding of SpaceX.”

Elon Musk and his team have blazed the trail, bringing a government industry into the private sphere as a commercially viable ecosystem. Henkel said the reusable Falcon boosters were a turning point, dramatically lowering launch costs and enabling new space companies, seen in the proliferation of IPOs and special purpose acquisition companies (also known as SPACs) coming to market.

Yet much still depends on launch execution, R&D and mission reliability. As SpaceX transitions to public markets it will essentially rerate the whole sector, bringing greater transparency, investor scrutiny and pressure to meet deadlines, amplifying its successes and failures.

“We’ve seen much hype and the current growth estimates are obviously very ambitious. But we’re talking about decades, not months for their business strategies.”

He said the focus on risk is a real point of difference, which was highlighted in the IPO prospectus.

“A couple of failed missions may only have a small impact to the balance sheet – even though they are very costly – but they’re potentially having a much larger effect on the actual stock price. Failed missions lead to decreased investor confidence in the technical abilities, which can cause you to lose trust.

“When we’re looking at SpaceX in the coming months and years, and capabilities of meeting deadlines, and commitments they’ve communicated to the open market, these are now more pressured because they are in the public market.”

Where will the money come from for this massive IPO?

Several reports cite JPMorgan’s estimates that roughly $95 billion worth of holdings – likely in the big tech names – will be sold off to accommodate new positions in SpaceX.

In her blog last week, Boring Money’s Holly Mackay makes a similar point: “If large investors want to buy in, they will need to free up cash by selling other holdings. They might take some profits from high-performing shares like Nvidia, so I’d expect some knock-on volatility in other shares which have had strong gains so far this year.”

What other IPOs have shown parallels to SpaceX?

While the hype may be comparable to Google’s IPO back in 2014, the reality for those trying to participate in a hugely popular public listing may more closely mirror that seen when Royal Mail floated in October 2013, with a seven times oversubscription.

Jeremy Fawcett, head of Platforum – a retail investment consultancy – said Royal Mail was the last big one in the UK, comparable to the government sell-offs during the move to privatisation in the 1980s.

If the amount you actually buy is significantly lower than what you’d hoped for, by the time you come to sell, taking into account trading fees and foreign exchange, you have to really think about how much you end up with.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty… if you remember the 2012 Olympics, we all applied for hundreds of tickets. And most people got nothing. So you get excited because you think, ‘I put my money on the line’, and then you get very little out of it.”

By European stock market standards, the size of the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO) will be breathtaking. The company is expected to be valued at between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion, and given how frothy Wall Street is right now, it would hardly be a surprise if it went to a substantial premium on its first few days of trading. We can all question the valuation. The Starlink business that now provides internet access on flights is a clear money-spinner and it may be able to break into domestic broadband as well, but the plans for a colony on Mars look, to put it politely, a little optimistic. Even so, this is a huge business and a very successful one, and it has created a huge amount of value in a very short period of time.

It is far from alone. Anthropic, the company behind Claude AI, is reported to be planning an IPO in October, with a valuation of $1 trillion or perhaps more. Its rival OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is also expected to list later this year, with a value of close to $1 trillion. There are slightly smaller companies just behind it. Last week, Cerebras, which makes AI chips, made its debut on Nasdaq, and after a first-day premium, saw its value soar to $95 billion. On the US market, incredible amounts of wealth are being created at dizzying speed. Anthropic is only five years old, OpenAI is ten (its profit-making unit only five) and although SpaceX was founded in 2002, it only really got going a decade ago.

The contrast with European stock markets is painful. SpaceX by itself will be worth almost as much as the whole of France's CAC-40 (valued at €2.6 trillion and falling rapidly as the value of LVMH slumps). It will be getting close to the entire value of Britain's FTSE 100, currently valued at £2.4 trillion, and SpaceX and Anthropic combined will certainly be worth more than all of the UK's 100 largest companies put together.

European stock markets need more mavericks like Elon Musk

The reason is clear. Very few new firms are being created. If you exclude mergers, the newest company on the CAC-40 is Eurofins Scientific, which was formed in 1987. Even where there are new companies, the best ones choose to list on Wall Street – the Cambridge-based chip designer ARM, for example, is now worth $220 billion, which would rank it as the third largest in the FTSE 100 if it had decided to list here.

Europe, including the UK, needs to realise how far behind it has fallen and start working out how to turn that around. First, it should radically reduce the taxes on start-ups to encourage more entrepreneurs. Britain has scaled back the break on capital-gains tax that anyone who started a new company used to benefit from, and most of Europe never had any concessions to start with. Instead, there is a constant stream of new wealth taxes and capital-gains taxes, with the Netherlands extraordinarily planning to tax capital gains before they have even been cashed in. No wonder there are far fewer start-ups and hence fewer giants ever emerge.

European stock markets should also roll back restrictions on growth industries such as AI and space. While the US has a booming space industry, Europe has a Space Act; while huge new AI businesses are created on the other side of the Atlantic, Europe is stuck with an AI Act. But there is no point in having a regulator if there isn't an industry to make rules for. There is still little sign that politicians in either Brussels or London realise how much damage has been done by trying to regulate industries before they have even begun.

Finally, Europe should relax the listing rule for entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk who want to keep control of companies. SpaceX will come in for a lot of criticism for allowing Musk so much control over the business and the $1 trillion pay package if he manages to create a thriving human colony on Mars. It doesn't follow Europe's governance rules. But so what? Entrepreneurs are often a little odd, and they are often control freaks, but they also have the drive and ambition to create huge new businesses. Europe could use fewer rules and more mavericks if it is to avoid turning into an investment backwater, with nothing more than a dull collection of very old companies.

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In 2024, Jared Isaacman became the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space. Within months, the daring payments billionaire – a close ally of Elon Musk – leapt closer to another personal goal by becoming Donald Trump’s top pick to head US space agency NASA. He was briefly out of favour when Trump and Musk fell out, but the stars have realigned for Isaacman. Trump has renominated Isaacman, saying he’s the ideal candidate to drive the agency’s “mission of discovery and inspiration”.

Within NASA, there are hopes that the appointment will draw a line under “weeks of drama” over who will lead the agency, says Bloomberg. Isaacman, 42 – who founded his company Shift4 at just 16 – is a political neophyte. But Trump highlighted his business achievements; and there’s no doubting his passion for extraterrestrial travel and derring-do, says Time. A former stunt pilot, he bankrolled last year’s three-day Polaris Dawn space mission, reportedly paying $200 million to Musk for all four seats aboard the SpaceX craft. Isaacman has tied himself closely to SpaceX since 2021, says Bloomberg, spending undisclosed sums on multiple missions and helping fund research and development. “A staunch supporter of the commercial space industry,” he’s expected to increase NASA’s use of private companies if confirmed for the top job. Conflict of interest is a worry.

“Dropping out of high school isn’t usually a good idea, but it sure paid off for one New Jersey kid,” noted a 2011 profile in Business Jet Traveler charting Isaacman’s meteoric rise. His parents, who earned a precarious living, worried when the self-described “horrible student” quit school, but Isaacman already had a business plan. During school holidays, he’d done IT work for Merchant Services Inc – “early e-commerce stuff” – and got a feel for the credit-card industry where he saw “a lot of opportunity for improvement”. In 1999, he founded United Bank Card from his parents’ basement: “Assets were limited to $10,000 in stock certificates that he’d received from his grandfather.”

The young firm flourished. Isaacman’s father, Don, who joined as a salesman, later said “he was within a year of losing his house” when the company (rebranded Shift4 in 2017) started, crediting his offspring with “saving the family”. There was no silver bullet, says Isaacman: no “one technology or patent”. He simply focused on streamlining the then labyrinthine business of processing credit cards, moving quickly into new technologies and often offering customers (typically restaurants and shops) free kit in order to win their accounts. Within a few years, the firm made Inc magazine’s annual list of America’s fastest-growing small businesses and Isaacman was runner-up to Mark Zuckerberg in the list of “30 top entrepreneurs under 30”. By 2011, he was running one of the US’s largest payment processors.

Can Jared Isaacman lead NASA?

Success gave Isaacman free rein to indulge his passion for flying. An avid collector of vintage planes, he became an aerobatics whizz, performing at air-shows. In 2009, says Fortune, he “set a world record for circumnavigating the globe”. Isaacman parlayed his love of aviation into a business, founding Draken International, a defence firm specialising in military aircraft and training pilots. In 2019, he sold a majority stake to Blackstone, launching himself into billionaire status. Isaacman is “a thrill seeker”, says Forbes. But that’s partly “to unwind from the non-stop… 80-plus-hour weeks” he works. NASA's staff can expect an intense regime of slashed meetings, cost-cutting and liberation from “inefficiencies”. Isaacman has said he wants to “foster a culture of urgent execution” in his quest to kick-start America’s new space age. “NASA’s Game of Thrones is finally over,” observed Politico. There’s quite a firebrand in the hotseat.

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Tesla has applied to the regulator Ofgem for a license to supply electricity to UK households. This move suggests the e-vehicle giant has ambitions to challenge big energy suppliers like British Gas, OVO and Octopus.

Tesla has only applied for an electricity license meaning households on a dual-fuel contract (electricity and gas) may be less interested in switching, if the company’s application is ultimately approved.

The application was published on the regulator’s website on 25 July and could take up to nine months to be processed.

Elon Musk’s company already has an electricity supplier in Texas called Tesla Electric, launched in 2022. It describes itself as “a retail electricity provider that helps you power your home, charge your electric vehicle and support the grid with low-cost, 100% Texas-generated sustainable electricity”.

Texan customers don’t need to own a Tesla product to be eligible, suggesting a similar model could be adopted in the UK if Ofgem approves Tesla’s application. Tesla owners could be more likely to use the provider, though, thanks to possible perks like cheap charging.

“Although its EV sales have dipped sharply this year, Tesla still boasts significant car ownership in the UK and has sold thousands of home storage batteries here,” said Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.

“This could mean Tesla Electric has access to a willing customer base, especially if it follows the model of its business in Texas which allows owners of its EVs to charge their cars cheaply and pays them for feeding surplus electricity back to the grid.”

Taking on the ‘big six’ providers and disrupting the UK energy market could be easier said than done, though.

“Tesla is entering a heavily regulated market in which margins have been squeezed to the narrowest possible extent and in which it faces competitors who have already invested in novel tariff offers,” said Adam Bell, ex-head of energy at the department for business, energy and industrial strategy, now director of policy at consultancy group Stonehaven.

“Even with access to an ecosystem of Tesla EV and Powerwall owners, it will find making headway challenging,” he told MoneyWeek.

Could Tesla disrupt the energy market?

Taking on the biggest energy providers is no easy feat. The share of the domestic energy market held by small and medium-sized suppliers fell to just 8.6% in the second quarter of 2025, according to figures published last month by consultancy Cornwall Insight.

The six largest suppliers now make up more than 90% of the domestic market – a far larger share than before the energy crisis.

“Tesla’s entry into the UK electricity supply market could add competitive pressure and bring more innovative tariff options, particularly for EV owners and households with solar panels who have the flexibility to shift demand,” said Bridget Payne, head of energy forecasting at advisory firm Oxford Economics.

“While this supports wider system decarbonisation goals identified by National Grid and the National Energy System Operator (NESO), time-of-use tariffs are already available in the market, so the move may be more of an evolution than a disruption.”

Back in 2020, Tesla partnered with Octopus Energy to launch the Tesla Energy Plan – a smart import/export tariff for those with solar panels and Tesla’s energy storage batteries. The plan allowed customers to access electricity at discounted rates and sell excess energy back to Octopus for the same price.

Tesla ended the plan three years later but Octopus still offers a similar plan through Octopus Flux.

Other providers also offer time-of-use tariffs which vary the cost of electricity based on the time of day you use it. These and EV tariffs can be popular among those with electric vehicles.

Summary

• Alphabet announced earnings per share (EPS) of $2.31 and revenue of $96.4 billion, beating analyst estimates
• Tesla’s results showed EPS of $0.40 and revenue of $22.50 billion, down year-over-year, but in line with analyst estimates
• Tesla shares fell over 4.6% during the earnings call
• Five other Magnificent Seven companies announce earnings next week. Nvidia announces at the end of August

The MoneyWeek team is bringing you rolling previews and analysis, along with live coverage and reaction. Keep following for the latest.

| Magnificent Seven latest | Invest in Tesla? | S&P 500 | AI ETFs |

Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of another big tech earnings season.

Two of the industry’s heavy hitters – Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (NYSE:TSM) – got things underway last week, but big tech earnings season truly kicks into gear this week, as the first two of the Magnificent Seven companies announce their results on Wednesday.

Alphabet’s earnings release will be an intriguing glimpse into how the company is navigating the choppy waters that artificial intelligence poses. Is its core Search business holding up in the face of increased AI competition? If not, can growth of its Google Cloud service make up for any shortfall?

Then there is Tesla. Once again, quarterly delivery numbers have disappointed, calling Musk’s much-publicised political activity into question. But Tesla is now a robotics company – didn’t you know? – so updates on this month’s robotaxi launch will be the focus of attention at Tesla’s earnings call.

We will bring you rolling updates, preview and analysis, throughout this week and next.

When are Alphabet’s and Tesla’s earnings releases?

Both Alphabet and Tesla announce earnings after US markets close on Wednesday 23 July.

Alphabet’s earnings call is scheduled for 1.30pm Pacific Time (9.30pm in the UK), half an hour after US markets close. Its earnings will likely be published online during that window.

Tesla’s earnings call is scheduled to start at 4.30pm central time – 10.30pm in the UK, so one hour later than Alphabet’s.

TSMC results paint upbeat picture for big tech earnings

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company – often referred to as TSMC for short – is rarely included in any of the big tech groupings, and isn’t anything like as much of a household name, but that is perhaps unfair.

In a nutshell, it is the world’s most advanced manufacturer of computer chips. Nvidia, which is the best-known semiconductor company in the world, doesn’t actually build any of its chips. TSMC does. It also builds chips for Apple, Arm, Qualcomm, AMD and Broadcom.

TSMC announced a 61% increase in profits last week, with revenue rising 39%. Yesterday, the company joined several of its high-profile customers in the $1 trillion market cap club.

Given that it builds the hardware that the rest of the tech industry depends on, TSMC’s success is a good bellwether for the health of the sector.

Netflix shares fall despite earnings beat

Streaming giant Netflix also posted its results last week. Shares fell in after-hours trading following the announcement, despite an earnings beat, exemplifying the weight of expectation that big tech companies are under at present.

Netflix was once numbered among the world’s most prominent big tech stocks during the ‘FAANG’ (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) era. Now, with a market cap around $520 billion, it is no longer in the upper echelons of big tech stocks, analysts, if not the market as a whole, were impressed with its 16% year-on-year revenue growth, and 47% increase in earnings.

“Netflix continues to produce phenomenal results with ever more growth in its sights,” said Alicia Reese, SVP Media & Entertainment equity research at Wedbush Securities. “Even as investor expectations were high heading into the print, and shares reflected some disappointment in the size of the beat and raise, the quality of the beat and raise keeps us positive as we assess the ongoing expansion of Netflix’s free cash flow.”

See our explainer on the results and subsequent Netflix shares reaction for more detail.

S&P 500 earnings strong so far

TSMC and Netflix are two of the highest-profile tech companies to have beaten earnings estimates so far, but it’s a trend that is playing out across the S&P 500.

Around 60 of the biggest 500 US companies have declared Q2 results so far. Of those, more than 80% have beaten expectations.

“That’s not unusual,” says Tom Stevenson, investment director at Fidelity International. “Companies tend to massage forecasts lower in the run up to results season.

“But it does suggest that earnings growth will continue at around the long-run average of 7%,” he adds.

Of course, with their high valuations, most of the Magnificent Seven stocks are expected to grow their earnings above this rate. Will they deliver?

Alphabet earnings: the watch-outs

Let’s take a closer look at the big tech earnings releases coming up this week, starting with Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Market sentiment towards Alphabet has dimmed in recent months. It is the cheapest of all the Magnificent Seven companies relative to past and projected earnings, trading at 21.22 times trailing earnings and 20.46 times projected earnings – below the S&P 500’s average on both fronts.

The fact that those two figures are so close to each other highlights part of the problem: analysts do not see Alphabet’s earnings growing significantly in the near future.

Many fear that generative AI could cut into demand for Google’s core Search business.

“New competition from language models like ChatGPT [is] a genuine threat,” says Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Alphabet has a quality lineup of businesses, but its long-standing crown as the entry point to the internet is under pressure, and that’s put the valuation under strain.”

There is also the possibility that regulators could force a breakup of Google’s business, with two antitrust cases having found that the company operates an illegal monopoly over internet search over the last year.

“Calls for a forced Chrome divestment could challenge Alphabet’s search dominance, and that will keep some investors cautious until there’s more clarity,” said Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro.

Google has said it will appeal the decisions, but with Search lying at the heart of Google, any updates will be closely monitored on Alphabet’s earnings call on Wednesday.

Alphabet earnings: the tailwinds

While generative AI poses a threat to Alphabet’s business, it also offers opportunities, and investors will watch out for these keenly at the earnings call tomorrow.

For one thing, AI demand is driving growth of Google Cloud, with analysts projecting top-line cloud revenue growth of around 26-27%.

“Alphabet is continuing to invest heavily in Gemini, its flagship AI assistant, as well as AI-powered ad products and enterprise tools,” says Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro. “With growing investor interest in monetisable AI applications, updates on Gemini’s integration into Search, Workspace and Cloud could be a key focus this quarter.”

Capital expenditure is likely to rise, but the market won’t necessarily regard that as a negative given the arms race that big tech companies are engaged in over AI.

“In this environment, it’s spend or get left behind,” says Gilbert.

Tesla earnings: under-delivery becoming a habit

Tesla’s earnings will be released under a cloud: delivery numbers fell year-on-year for the second consecutive quarter. The company announced a total of 384,122 deliveries for the quarter on 2 July.

Shares in Tesla actually rose by 4% following the announcement, but fell 8.4% on 7 July. Tesla shares have fallen nearly 20% this year, as the relationship between CEO Elon Musk and president Donald Trump has soured.

“Elon’s position as a Tony Stark-like personality at the head of the company was a boon for a long time, but it’s hard to argue that his prominence isn’t having some detrimental effect on the brand,” says Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro. Read more on Musk’s changing relationship with Tesla here: Who’s driving Tesla?

Cybertruck sales have also continued to decline, having hit their lowest level in a year during the last quarter.

Fairly poor financial results can be almost baked-in for Tesla, barring any major cost-cutting achievements. As is often the case with the company, the short-term share price movements might hinge more on what Musk says that what the numbers show.

Tesla earnings: the robo-revolution

Tesla believers, though, don’t tend to have their faith shaken easily. Few are more bullish than Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities.

Ives points to an uptick in Chinese sales during June as one reason for optimism ahead of Tesla’s earnings.

“Despite seeing more low-cost models enter the market from Chinese OEMs like BYD, Nio, Xpeng, and others, the company’s recent updates to the Model Y spurred increased demand,” says Ives.

With the long-awaited robotaxi launch having taken place in Austin earlier this month, there will be plenty for Musk to shout about if he wants to. Investors will look for updates on all things robotics when gauging Tesla’s mid-term prospects.

“There are a number of other key endeavors at Tesla including Optimus and the future of robotics, with Tesla one of the clear future leaders in AI in our view,” says Ives.

Thanks for following our reporting ahead of Tesla and Alphabet's earnings. We're leaving things here for today, but join us here again tomorrow morning for a full day of preview and analysis ahead of live coverage of the earnings releases in the evening.

Good morning, and welcome back to our live coverage of big tech earnings season.

This evening sees both Google parent Alphabet and Elon Musk's Tesla announce their second quarter (Q2) results.

Both companies are coming into this earnings season facing challenges as well as headwinds from the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Follow here live for rolling previews and live updates from both earnings calls.

When do Alphabet and Tesla announce earnings?

To recap, both Tesla and Alphabet announce their Q2 earnings today, after US markets close. That means any time from 9pm in the UK.

Tesla and Alphabet will host an earnings call where management will field calls from analysts. These are scheduled to take place back to back. The earnings release for each company could land any time between the close of markets and the start of the earnings call, but they tend to land fairly soon after markets close.

The key timings are summarised in the table below:

Alphabet and Tesla earnings: what to expect

Analysts are forecasting the below revenue and earnings per share figures at Alphabet and Tesla’s releases this evening, according to consensus estimates from analysts polled by FactSet and LSEG:

Based on FactSet estimates, analysts expect Tesla’s revenue to fall 12.6% year-on-year, and for its earnings to fall by 23.1%.

The forecasts imply a 10.9% increase in revenue and a 15.3% increase in earnings for Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Alphabet earnings: beyond the numbers

As ever with big tech earnings, it is less likely to be the headline numbers that dictate which way Alphabet's shares trade immediately after it announces results today.

Instead, the data and comments from management surrounding the longer-term challenges and opportunities is likely to be the main driver.

In Alphabet's case, this all boils down to whether or not the potential gains from AI outweigh the threats it causes to the Google parent company's business.

"The rise of ChatGPT and other AI platforms has created unprecedented challenges for Google's search business," says Fabien Yip, market analyst at IG. "These new competitors offer conversational interfaces that provide intellectual answers to complex questions, potentially reducing users' reliance on traditional search engines and the advertising revenue they generate."

Google has developed competitors to ChatGPT, particularly its latest model Gemini 2.5 Pro, and investors will look for evidence of growth and adoption of Gemini during tonight's earnings call.

There is also the opportunity for Google Cloud to keep taking market share from competitors, like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

"Innovation in AI enterprise solutions will be crucial for Google Cloud's continued success," says Yip. "The company's ability to integrate cloud offerings with other Google products like Workspace provides a competitive advantage that rivals find difficult to replicate."

Could Tesla invest in xAI?

One topic that could come up on Tesla’s earnings call this evening is the possibility of the company investing money into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up, xAI, which makes the Grok chatbot.

“Tesla is about to embark on an aggressive AI-focused strategy that we believe will include owning a significant piece of xAI,” says Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities. “While near-term and this quarter the numbers are nothing to write home about, we believe investors are instead focused on the AI future at Tesla.”

Tesla investing in xAI would be subject to a shareholder vote later this year. Historically, Tesla investors have tended to follow Musk’s lead when it comes to corporate votes, but Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro, feels that convincing investors to put Tesla money into another Musk company could be a hard sell.

“Even if there is a theoretical future benefit for Tesla, it’s going to be a very hard case to make,” he says.

Winning the AI race: Trump to speak at AI summit as Tesla announces earnings

Today’s tech earnings announcements are conveniently timed, coinciding as they do with a major event in American AI.

President Donald Trump is due to speak at the ‘Winning the AI Race’ summit hosted by the All-In podcast and the Hill and Valley Forum in Washington, DC today.

Along with senior leaders from tech companies like Palantir and VC firms such as Y Combinator, Trump is expected to outline a roadmap to making the US the world’s leading AI economy.

Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, anticipates three main strands:

• The build-out of AI infrastructure;
• Innovation aimed at blocking states’ ability to hinder AI development with regulation;
• Ensuring that global US allies adopt its models, rather than those of “foreign adversaries”.

“The Trump keynote will likely aim at outlining a national AI strategy while targeting aggressive plans to accelerate chip exports reflecting the new administration’s elevated focus on winning the AI race,” says Ives.

Trump’s address is scheduled to take place at 5pm Eastern time, and as such could overlap with both Alphabet and Tesla’s earnings calls.

TSLA and GOOGL shares: one hour until US markets open

There is just under an hour to go until US markets open for the final session before Tesla and Alphabet announce their results.

Yesterday, Tesla stock gained 1.1%, but pre-market moves suggest Tesla shares could open today slightly below this level.

Alphabet shares likewise saw gains yesterday, of around 0.65%, but look set to open slightly down today.

Tesla share price opens 0.4% down ahead of earnings

US markets are now open, and shares in Tesla have opened the final session before the Q2 earnings release 0.4% below yesterday’s close.

Tesla shares have fallen around 18.3% so far this year

Alphabet’s shares opened today’s session slightly above yesterday’s close, but have since slipped below it.

Investors can expect big changes in both Alphabet and Tesla’s share price in after-hours trading following their earnings announcements today.

Magnificent Seven earnings calendar

Alphabet and Tesla are the first two Magnificent Seven companies to announce their Q2 earnings. Here’s the full schedule with the rest of the season’s releases:

There is a big gap between the first six companies and Nvidia, as is usual. Some semiconductor companies, such as Broadcom, won’t release their results until September.

Google revenue: what to watch in Alphabet's earnings release

Google’s heart and soul is its Search business, but its Cloud division is the fastest-growing segment by some distance.

“Cloud growth is the other key driver for Alphabet, with Google Cloud looking much more competitive for AI workloads than it was in previous cloud wars,” says Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Analysts are forecasting somewhere between 26-27% revenue growth for Google Cloud, implying a figure of $13.04-13.14 billion.

Alphabet’s share price movements following the earnings call could largely depend on whether the figure comes in above or below this level.

Look out also for Google Services revenue. This division includes the core search and advertising revenue that Google’s empire is built upon.

Analysts expect growth here to slow to 8.5%, implying a figure of $80.21 billion. Beating that would suggest that Google Search is more resilient than thought to the generative AI threat – for now at least. However, falling short could set alarm bells ringing.

We're going to pause coverage for a few hours, but we'll be back around 9pm, when US markets close. Join us then as we report Tesla and Alphabet's earnings releases live.

Tesla shares look set to close up ahead of earnings

Good evening, and welcome back to our live coverage of Alphabet and Tesla's results.

Tesla shares opened this session down, but are around 0.3% up for the day as we head into the final minutes of regular trading.

Shares in Alphabet, though, have fallen through this session. Will Q2 results, and the subsequent earnings calls, change the picture for either stock?

US markets close; Alphabet and Tesla results now due

US markets have now closed. Alphabet shares finish this session 0.58% down, while Tesla's stock gained 0.14%.

Attention now shifts to the imminent release of each company's Q2 earnings report. As a reminder, here's what analysts polled by FactSet and LSEG are expecting:

BREAKING: Alphabet earnings rise 22% year-on-year

Alphabet's headline figures are in:

• Revenue of $96.4 billion, 14% up year-on-year
• Earnings per share of $2.31, up 22%

Alphabet beats on revenue and earnings

Both earnings and revenue came in above analysts' expectations. Google Search and Google Cloud revenue have both beaten expectations too.

Services revenue increased 12% to $82.5 billion, while Cloud revenue grew 32% to $13.6 billion. Analysts had been forecasting these segments to grow by 8.5% and 27% respectively.

Despite this, Alphabet shares have fallen 2.3% in after-hours trading. A reflection, perhaps, of how high market expectations are on the big tech giants.

BREAKING: Tesla earnings fall by 23%

Tesla has now released its results. The headline figures:

• Total revenues down 12% year-on-year to $22.50 billion;
• Earnings per share down 23% to $0.40.

Numbers like these were expected; earnings per share is exactly as FactSet analysts had forecast, while revenue is a touch higher.

Tesla shares are, in fact, gaining ground in after-hours trading following the earnings release.

Alphabet bumps capex to $85 billion

Alphabet's results make great reading on the face of it. Beats across the board, and the core Google business lines (especially Search and Cloud) have outperformed expectations.

The share price is tanking all the same.

One reason for this could be a big spending announcement.

"We are increasing our investment in capital expenditures in 2025 to approximately $85 billion and are excited by the opportunity ahead," said Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in the earnings release.

Has this big spending increase caught the market off-guard? AI is known to need big cap-ex from the major players, but some investors may be baulking at the level of this spend.

Tesla: affordable car is now in production

Tesla stock made gains immediately after its results were released - though these have since reversed.

Poor financial results had already been factored in ahead of today's results, given the deliveries were announced earlier in the month.

But there are positives in the earnings release. One of these is an announcement that the long-awaited affordable car began production in June, and that this will scale up in the second half of 2025.

The announcement also states that Cybercab will enter volume production in 2026. Anything relating to the self-driving car business is going to attract investors' attention. Expect Elon Musk to dive into detail on this during this evening's earnings call.

Alphabet earnings call starts

Alphabet's earnings call is now getting underway. Management will flesh out the raw numbers that have already been released.

Shares are down about 1.25% in after-hours trading at the start of the call.

Alphabet earnings highlights: Alphabet CEO says AI is benefitting Google Search

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai is delivering his open remarks, and striking an emphatic tone on the positive impacts of AI on Google’s business.

AI Overviews in Google Search now has over 2 billion monthly users, across more than 200 countries, according to Pichai.

The Gemini app has over 450 million monthly active users. Daily requests were 50% higher in June alone than in the first quarter of the year.

“AI features cause users to search more, as they learn that search can meet more of their needs,” says Pichai. That seems to be a direct response to market fears that generative AI could eat into demand for Google Search.

The market is responding positively to these comments. Alphabet stock has rebounded to above where it closed today’s session, reversing the share price drop that accompanied the results’ initial release.

Alphabet’s capital expenditure in focus

According to Alphabet’s CFO Anat Ashkenazi, the extra $10 billion that Alphabet is spending this year largely reflects “additional investment in servers, the timing of delivery of servers and an acceleration in the pace of data centre production, primarily to meet cloud customer demand”.

Both she and Pichai have spoken of a tight supply environment for compute power, as the world’s technology companies vie for access to the world’s data centre resources.

Part of Alphabet’s response to that tight market is to increase the supply, by building out its own data centre infrastructure. But Pichai warns there will be a lag before that new capacity comes online; demand for compute power is going to outstrip supply for the foreseeable future.

Alphabet's share price has now gained more than 3% in after-hours trading, as investors digest management's framing of the results.

Can Google Search keep making money in the AI era?

A question has come in on the monetisation of Google Search, given the falling number of ad impressions available per click-through in the era of AI Overviews.

Google's chief business offer Philipp Schindler replies: "AI Overviews... continue to drive higher satisfaction [and] higher search uses.

"We see monetisation at approximately the same rate, which gives us a really strong base on which we can then innovate and drive more innovative, next-generation ad formats."

Alphabet's earnings call sees shares gain 2.7%

Alphabet's earnings call has now finished. Shares are up 2.7% in after-hours trading at the end of it.

Now our attention turns to Tesla, whose earnings call will start shortly. At present, Tesla shares are down around 0.4% in after-hours trading.

Tesla: robotaxis could serve half US population by the end of the year

Tesla's earnings call starts with some big statements on the rollout of its (geofenced) robotaxi service.

Robotaxi is set to expand to "well in excess of what competitors are doing" in the next two weeks, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The company is also seeking regulatory approval to launch in the San Francisco Bay Area, Arizona and Florida. Musk says that by the end of the year, Tesla will "technically" be able to offer self-driving rides to half the US population.

"That's our goal, subject to regulatory approvals," said Musk.

Musk aims for 1 million Optimus robots annually within five years

Optimus, Tesla's humanoid robot, will have prototypes this year, followed by scaled production next year, says Musk.

He says that the objective will be to produce one million units per year as quickly as possible - hopefully, within five years, he says.

Market will need more convincing on Google’s AI staying power

The conundrum that surrounded Alphabet, and whether AI is a headwind or a tailwind for Google, still remains even after a strong set of results.

“Alphabet is being forced to adapt or risk becoming a dinosaur in the new AI age,” says Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

The numbers on the key areas – Search and Cloud revenue – were impressive. But the question of monetisation remains.

“The Alphabet AI investment case is something of an enigma,” says Britzman. While the market seems to have decided that Alphabet is destined to be a loser in the AI race, Britzman feels that view is “both short-sighted and overly pessimistic.

“That said,” he adds, “until there’s more confidence that AI integration won’t cannibalise core search revenue, and some clarity around ongoing legal battles, there’s enough uncertainty to cap near-term upside.”

Customers love robotaxi, says Tesla

The opening remarks in Tesla's earnings call are now done. They were unusually uneventful, the robotaxi and Optimus plans notwithstanding.

The first analyst question asks for more detail on the robotaxi rollout.

"Robo taxi has been doing great so far in Austin," replies Tesla's CFO Vaibhav Taneja. "Customers really love the experience. Super smooth, very safe, and just a great experience overall."

He adds that expansion in Austin has already started, and that testing in a number of other cities has already started.

Tesla CFO: not appropriate to discuss xAI investment in earnings call

A question is asked about the benefits of Tesla invested into xAI.

CFO Janeja replies that this isn't the forum to discuss that issue, and that "if there is something which we need to discuss, we'll discuss it separately".

Musk then adds, "Obviously, we're a publicly-traded company. Shareholders are welcome to put forward any shareholder proposals that they'd like. I personally encourage that."

Tesla stock falls 2.8% in after-hours trading

Tesla shares slumped at around the time that Elon Musk finished his prepared remarks. They are now down around 2.8% in after-hours trading.

Most of the comments have been a little underwhelming, and non-specific. A lot of reasons given for delays in delivery - but many of these same reasons have been given at previous earnings calls.

Is the market starting to lose patience with Tesla?

How will the end of EV tax credits impact Tesla?

The end of tax credits could lead to "a few rough quarters", says Musk in response to a question on the subject. President Donald Trump has said that he will remove the electric vehicle (EV) tax credits that were introduced during the Biden era later this year.

Musk says that while tax incentives for EVs are vanishing in the US, they are still in place in much of the rest of the world.

"On the other hand, autonomy is most advanced and available from a regulatory standpoint in the US. So does that mean we could have a few rough quarters? Yeah, we probably could."

While the second half of this year and the first half of next could be tricky, Musk says that "once you get to autonomy at scale in the second half of next year... I'd be surprised if Tesla's economics weren't very compelling".

That's the end of Tesla's earnings call. Shares are down over 4.6% in after-hours trading, with investors having responded negatively to a cautious set of responses from Musk and his team.

Thank you for following our live coverage. That's everything for this evening, but we will be back tomorrow morning with rolling analysis and reaction to Google and Tesla's earnings.

Tesla’s long game

Good morning, and welcome back to live coverage. We’ll spend today breaking down the implications of last night’s earnings results from Alphabet and Tesla.

There are two contrasting stories there. Alphabet’s share price gained 2.3% in after-hours trading as management was able to paint an upbeat picture of Google’s place in the AI ecosystem, in spite of the challenges to its core business that the technology poses.

But Tesla’s share price fell 6.1% in after-hours trading, as CEO Elon Musk warned that the company could be set for a tough period until the second half of 2026.

“The typical playbook for the past few quarters has been declining fundamentals but enough AI hype to keep investors sleeping at night,” said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Musk’s cautious tone went against this typical pattern, but he was as ever bullish about the longer-term plan for Tesla, saying it is easier to predict where the company will be in five years’ time than in one or two.

“Tesla is in a very small cohort of companies with enough growth potential that investors are, for now at least, willing to look past weakening core financials,” says Britzman. “Last night's comments confirmed many fears around tariffs, rising costs, tougher margins, and struggling cash flows.

“But with that now firmly built in as the base case, the AI story can take back the wheel.

Robotaxi versus Waymo

One of the big questions that surrounds Alphabet and Tesla – and which both management teams discussed on last night’s earnings calls – is the future of the self-driving car market. Google’s Waymo and Tesla’s robotaxi are viewed as the two front-runners.

Waymo has now covered 100 miles on public roads, it was revealed yesterday. But Elon Musk went out of his way to talk down Waymo’s prospects, saying “Google is good at AI, yes, but they’re not good at real-world AI”.

ARK Invest – known for its bullish stance on Tesla – explains why they feel Tesla is the frontrunner in this race.

“Waymo in San Francisco, while more expensive than Uber and Lyft, are already starting to take share,” says Sam Korus, director of research for autonomous technology & robotics at ARK Invest. “And there are a lot of reasons why Tesla should be able to offer rides for a lower price than Waymo.

“They're using vision only, so their vehicles are less expensive. They have an adaptable fleet, so they can meet peak trough demand, without having underutilised vehicles. And they've got manufacturing scale so don't have to negotiate with other auto manufacturers.”

He adds that Tesla produces around 5,000 cars per day, which is around double the size of Waymo’s entire fleet. All of these can hypothetically become self-driving robotaxis.

“At the end of the day, people are going to look at an app and say, I can get from point A to point B for less money,” adds Korus.

Google Search looks safe for now

A major highlight for Alphabet last night was the resilience that its core Google Search business showed.

“Management commentary should alleviate investor caution around the perceived risks of generative AI on the Search business,” said Scott Devitt, managing director, Equity Research at Wedbush Securities. “These concerns are overdone, in our view, with Alphabet validating its ability to navigate this period of transition by exhibiting healthy query volume growth across both new and traditional surfaces.”

Top-line revenue growth for the Search arm beat analysts’ expectations, coming in at 11.7%. Paid click growth accelerated from 2% in Q1 to 4% in Q2.

While Alphabet still trades at the lowest earnings multiple of all Magnificent Seven companies, Devitt feels there is room for this improve over the coming quarters as investors become more comfortable with “the current macro environment, regulatory risk and the impact of generative AI on the business”.

Tesla and Alphabet earnings recap

Here’s a reminder of the headline results that Alphabet announced last night:

Tesla’s results looked like this:

Expectations are based on the consensus estimates of analysts polled by FactSet.

Tesla stock continues to fall

Any hope that Tesla stock would bounce back quickly from its after-hours decline has been dashed today.

Tesla's share price opened today's session 6.8% below yesterday's close, and has since fallen further, currently down around 7.6%.

The data centre supply gap

There was much talk during Alphabet’s earnings call yesterday on the tightness of compute supply: that is, how much resource is available in AI-dedicated data centres compared to the demand for it.

That tight supply is what eventually ameliorated the market’s response to Alphabet’s eye-watering $85 billion capex figure for 2025. There is huge demand for resources, and with Google Cloud revenue growth exceeding expectations, it makes sense for Alphabet to invest in capturing this market.

“AI adoption is growing at a speed far greater than what anyone is prepared for,” says Hortense Bioy, head of sustainable investing research at Morningstar Sustainalytics. Morningstar’s demand model forecasts US data centre capacity to triple between 2024 and 2030.

So while Google’s investment seems extreme at first glance, this is a market with significant growth potential. Google Cloud’s backlog increased 38% year-on-year, “implying continued momentum in the coming periods”, says Scott Devitt, managing director, Equity Research at Wedbush Securities.

Thank you for following our coverage of Alphabet and Tesla's earnings releases. We're going to end things here for now, but we'll be back next week for coverage of the next four Magnificent Seven stocks to announce earnings: Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.

Investing seems complex when you first start, but picking the right investment funds for beginners can make it much more straightforward, and give you an easy on-ramp to building your wealth over the long term.

So if you’re wondering how to begin investing, picking out one or two top funds could be a great place to start.

“Investing is a measured and long-term process,” says Rob Morgan, chief investment analyst at Charles Stanley. “It involves taking risk but doing so in a way that minimises and mitigates it, to more reliably harness the growth available across global economies and individual companies.”

Investment funds are a particularly good option for beginners because they offer a convenient way to manage the level of risk you’re taking. Investing in a fund spreads your money, and therefore your risk, across dozens of different companies.

There are funds for almost any type of investment, from sustainable funds that can grow your wealth while making a positive impact, to AI funds that track the world’s most cutting-edge technology.

Investment funds explained for beginners

There are several types of funds, including:

• Open-ended funds;
• Closed-ended funds (or, more commonly, ‘investment trusts’);
• Exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. But the simplest and most relevant for beginner investors are ETFs.

An ETF is a fund that trades as a single share on a stock exchange. Its price changes while stock markets are open in line with changes in the price of the assets it tracks. You can buy and sell it in a stocks and shares ISA, just as if it was a stock.

There are ETFs for almost everything, but beginners might be particularly interested in ETF index funds. These track a specific index, such as the UK’s FTSE 100 or the US’s S&P 500.

“If you’re not sure which companies you wish to own, you may want to consider a tracker fund, or an ETF,” says Claire Exley, head of advice and guidance at J.P. Morgan Personal Investing. “These will allow you to hold a small amount of, for example, every company listed in the FTSE 100.”

Index funds are usually low-cost: because they just track an index, there’s not much to pay by way of management fees.

Best of all, they usually outperform more active stock-picking strategies. AJ Bell’s December 2025 Manager versus Machine report found that only 20% of actively-managed funds (IE, those where the manager decides when to buy and sell stocks, rather than just tracking an index) outperformed a passive alternative over the last five years.

Three types of investment funds for beginners to consider

If you are drawing up a shortlist of the first funds to add to your investment portfolio, investment platform AJ Bell breaks the available fund universe down into three categories in terms of the kinds of investments they make.

Global equity tracker funds

Funds that track the global stock market are a great way to get started in investing without having to decide on any specific region or industry.

“These funds provide low-cost exposure to companies around the world, with representation from a wide range of sectors,” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at AJ Bell.

Four of the best-known global equities (another word for ‘stocks’) indices are MSCI World, MSCI All Country World, FTSE World and FTSE Developed World. Tracker funds following these indices should register the same price movements (or very close to them) over any given timeframe.

Some of the most popular global stock tracker funds on AJ Bell’s platform are:

Source: AJ Bell, based on net flows from 13 April 2025 to 12 April 2026

Global bond tracker funds

If you’re looking for a more cautious approach to getting started in investment funds, you could look at bond funds instead.

“When shares fall, bonds often fall less and recover faster, helping to smooth the overall investment journey,” said Coatsworth. “That might suit someone in their 40s or early 50s approaching retirement, those already in retirement, or more anxious individuals.”

There are typically three types of bond that bond funds invest in – corporate bonds, government bonds (such as gilts) or a combination of the two (these are known as strategic bond funds).

Some popular bond funds for beginner investors on AJ Bell are:

Source: AJ Bell, based on net flows from 13 April 2025 to 12 April 2026.

Multi-asset funds

Most portfolios combine bonds and equities, as well as other types of asset. You can do this yourself by buying funds specialising in different investments, but a more convenient approach is to buy a multi-asset fund which acts as a self-contained portfolio in its own right.

“The more cautious you are, the greater the proportion you might want in bonds,” said Coatsworth. “However, there’s such a thing as being too cautious. Those with time to ride out the ups and downs of the stock market might want to avoid having too much in bonds as a proportion of their overall portfolio given the returns might be much lower than a more equity-weighted portfolio.”

Six funds for beginners

With input from Charles Stanley’s Morgan, we’ve picked out six investment funds for beginners, which we’ve shared below.

Fidelity Index World

Risk level: medium-high

A low-cost, cheap tracker fund is a great starting point to gain exposure to a market or sector, giving you convenient ownership of all or most of the companies that make up that market’s index.

Fidelity Index World is a good fund for beginners to consider because it provides a convenient tracker for the global stock market.

Personal Assets Trust

Risk level: medium-low

Personal Assets Trust (LON:PNL) is a multi-asset investment trust that sets out primarily to avoid losing money in inflation-adjusted terms (making it a less risky investment compared to funds that are more concerned with growing wealth than preserving it).

The portfolio comprises four main asset types: equities, bonds, cash and gold.

This has proved a resilient combination. The returns from each of these asset classes tend to rise and fall independently of one another, meaning that it can hold up even in changing market conditions.

Vanguard LifeStrategy Funds

Risk level: variable

The advantage of this multi-asset fund range is that it has several different funds, each with a different risk profile, so investors can select the one that best suits them.

Interactive Investor includes three in its quick-start fund range for beginner investors: 20% Equity, 60% Equity and 80% Equity, though the full range also includes 40% and 100% equity options. The remainder of the portfolio is invested in bonds.

As a rule of thumb, the higher the percentage of equities, the higher the risk profile, and the higher the potential returns.

Royal London Short Term Money Market Fund

Risk level: low

Money market funds invest your money as if it was cash, but they tend to generate returns just above the Bank of England base rate.

Interactive Investor includes Royal London’s Short Term Money Market Fund in its quick-start range, and characterises it as very low risk. This is a very cautious option: your investment is very unlikely to fall in value with a money market fund, but it’s also unlikely to grow much beyond inflation.

M&G Global Dividend

Risk level: medium-high

Dividends are the payments that companies make to their shareholders. Ultimately, it is dividend payments – or the expectation of future dividend payments – that gives shares their value.

M&G Global Dividend harnesses the power of dividend stocks, with a global perspective. It holds a wide variety of companies and could be of particular interest to investors seeking a rising income from their investments.

Scottish Mortgage

Risk level: high

Scottish Mortgage (LON:SMT) is one of the best-known investment trusts for innovation-led growth investing.

Morgan believes that anyone taking a long-term approach to investing should consider investing in a fund that looks for long-term growth through technological innovation. Their long-term perspective ought to let them ride out short-term volatility and reap the long-term rewards.

Scottish Mortgage invests in private companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX or TikTok owner ByteDance, as well as those listed on global stock markets, offering opportunities that are otherwise hard for beginner investors to access.

The net worth of the richest person in the world is double that of the billionaire with the second-largest fortune.

While the wealthiest people in the world often change places on the rich list, the one person who has consistently held the top spot since 2025 is Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk – except for one time when he briefly dropped to second place, behind Oracle’s Larry Ellison last year.

In total, the five richest people in the world have a combined net worth of close to $2 trillion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. Using the same index, we explore their wealth in detail below.

As the wealthiest bunch are all men, we take a look at the richest woman in the world in a separate guide.

The richest person in the world

1. Elon Musk  

Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, with a staggering $733 billion to his name.

The South African entrepreneur has added over a hundred billion to his net worth in the past year, thanks to buzz around the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering (IPO), touted to be the largest IPO in history. It has made him richer than the two billionaires right below him on the rich list combined.

Moreover, Tesla stock has surged nearly 14-fold since the pandemic, with a market capitalisation of $1.36 trillion at the time of writing.

Musk owns around 11% of Tesla and roughly 50% of SpaceX. We break down Elon Musk’s net worth in a separate guide.

2. Larry Page

Alphabet co-founder Larry Page’s net worth has topped $300 billion for the first time in history, as Google’s parent company’s stock rose in the latest Mag 7 earnings season after increased AI spending. His net worth now stands at $328 billion.

A majority of Page’s wealth comes from his stake in Google, which rebranded as Alphabet in 2015, grouping all its divisions – including Gmail, Android and YouTube – under one umbrella. He’s not the only mind behind Google in the rich list – as you’ll see below.

Find out more about Larry Page's net worth.

3. Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Alphabet, is a new entrant to this list. He has a net worth of $305 billion, not far behind that of fellow co-founder Larry Page.

The American businessman was the president of Alphabet until 2019, and has since remained a board member and a controlling shareholder. He co-founded Google with Larry Page in 1998, after the two met at Stanford University.

Alphabet became the fourth company to achieve a market capitalisation of $4 trillion, joining the likes of Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple to hit the milestone. Its stock grew by 65% last year, marking the largest single-year jump for the company since 2009.

Brin has been donating millions of dollars of his shares in Alphabet to fund research on Parkinson’s disease.

4. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $284 billion. The billionaire is most famous for founding Amazon in 1994, which started when Bezos saw a gap in the market for e-commerce and began to sell books online, working out of his garage. Now, the empire has a market capitalisation of $2.85 trillion.

Bezos also owns The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States. He also has a stake in Blue Origin, a space exploration company he founded in 2000.

Bezos is increasingly looking to dominate the world of film and fashion. He was the lead sponsor and honorary co-chair of the 2026 Met Gala and donated $10 million, making it the largest individual financial commitment in the event’s history.

Moreover, last year, Amazon took creative control of the James Bond franchise. Back in 2021, it acquired MGM Studios, a historic American production company, for $8.45 billion. Some of MGM’s most popular films include The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Find out more about the factors that contributed to Jeff Bezos’ net worth.

5.  Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison is the man behind one of the world’s largest software companies, Oracle, which he founded in 1977. His net worth is $248 billion.

Ellison owns more than 40% of Oracle – making him the largest shareholder – and has holdings in Tesla, having been one of the company’s board of directors from 2018 to 2022.

On 10 September 2025, Ellison briefly overtook Elon Musk as the richest person in the world, a title Musk had claimed for just over 300 days. This was due to Oracle’s earnings report, which revealed a deal with OpenAI.

It resulted in gains of 36% in a single day for the database software company’s share price, adding almost $250 billion to its market capitalisation and around $89 billion to Ellison’s personal wealth. Major Oracle shareholders also became wealthier instantly.

Read more on Larry Ellison’s net worth and how he makes the rest of his billions away from Oracle.

Elon Musk is now not only the richest person in the world but also the first and only trillionaire in history.

After SpaceX’s highly anticipated IPO on 12 June, Forbes reported that Musk added $188 billion to his already astronomical wealth. It means that his net worth is now more than that of the four billionaires after him on the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List.

But where exactly did it all start, and how did the South African tycoon add 12 zeroes to his net worth?

We chart how his wealth has grown from his early years of founding what is now PayPal, joining Tesla, and launching SpaceX.

Elon Musk’s net worth over the years

At the time of writing, Elon Musk’s net worth is $1.3 trillion, according to Forbes.

To put that into perspective, Sarah Coles of AJ Bell says: “If you aimed for a trillion pounds and you were starting from scratch, you could put away £500 a month and, with growth at 5% a year and contributions rising 2% a year, it would take around 316 years.”

Musk’s net worth has grown substantially over the past few years, driven largely by his stakes in electric vehicle company Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX.

He first appeared on Forbes’s World’s Billionaires list in 2012, when he had an estimated fortune of $2 billion, making him the world’s 634th richest person. From then on, it took Musk less than a decade to take the top spot, dethroning Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person in January 2021.

Elon Musk’s early life and career

Musk was born in South Africa on 28 June 1971. From an early age, he showed an interest in technology and innovation.

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 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 emerged as one of the world’s most electric vehicle companies, with a market capitalisation of over $1.12 trillion.

Musk also co-founded solar panel installation firm SolarCity, neurotechnology company Neuralink and tunnel construction firm The Boring Company.

How SpaceX became the largest IPO in history

SpaceX’s meteoric rise to become the world’s largest-ever initial public offering can be attributed to Elon Musk’s larger-than-life public persona, widening interest in investing in space, and rising AI spending by tech megacaps.

On 12 June, shares in the AI and space company began trading on the Nasdaq at $150 per share, raising $75 billion and closing with a market cap of $2.11 trillion.

It makes SpaceX one of the world’s most valuable companies, reaching the milestone in an extremely short timespan.

Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration

Elon Musk’s influence extends far beyond the tech world. He was a prominent supporter of Donald Trump during the 2024 US presidential election, spending over $290 million to get Trump into the White House, according to CNN.

Following Trump’s victory over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, Musk secured a position in his administration, serving as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

DOGE emerged as a means to cut US government spending, which resulted in mass workforce layoffs and controversial cuts to USAID, which is responsible for foreign aid and humanitarian relief. On 28 May 2025, Musk departed from the role to focus on Tesla.

Elon Musk’s property portfolio and car collection

Musk has built up a vast property empire over the years. In 2020, he stated on X 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 in total, according to Architectural Digest, including a 16,000-square-foot home in Los Angeles, 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. In 2022, he bought a 6,900-square-foot mansion in West Lake Hills, Texas, 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.

The Tesla CEO 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.

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.

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.