Elon Musk's Net Worth Rockets to an Astronomical $348 Billion in 2024
Elon Musk's Net Worth Rockets to an Astronomical $348 Billion in 2024.
What is Elon Musk's Net Worth?
Elon Musk, a businessman, inventor, and investor born in South Africa and now a Canadian-American, has a staggering net worth of $348 billion, making him the richest person on the planet. Back in November 2021, he briefly hit over $340 billion, surpassing John D. Rockefeller and marking a milestone as the wealthiest individual in modern history. From January 2021 to March 2024, he held the title of the richest person, until Jeff Bezos took the lead again. However, in November 2024, Elon set a new record with his net worth hitting $348 billion.
Most of Elon's wealth comes from his 13% stake in Tesla, which amounts to about 412 million shares. He also has 304 million options to buy more Tesla shares, giving him around 21% ownership of the company. He’s used 58% of his Tesla shares as collateral for $3.5 billion in personal loans, and in 2022, he sold off $40 billion worth of Tesla shares to help finance his Twitter acquisition.
Elon is a co-founder of both SpaceX and the Boring Company, and he chairs SolarCity. He holds a 43% stake in SpaceX, which was valued at $180 billion during its latest funding round. The Boring Company is estimated to be worth around $5 billion as of that same round. In October 2022, Elon bought Twitter for $44 billion, owning about 79% of it at that valuation. However, Twitter's worth has dropped significantly under his leadership, possibly down to $19 billion. As mentioned earlier, he sold off $40 billion in Tesla shares in 2022 mainly to finance the Twitter deal.
9 Facts About Elon Musk
- He sold his first company, Zip2, to Compaq in 1999 for a cool $340 million.
- He put some of that cash into X.com.
- X.com eventually turned into PayPal, which eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002.
- He holds 43% of SpaceX, which is now valued at $180 billion.
- He also owns 21% of Tesla.
- His net worth shot up by $142 billion in 2020.
- He once claimed to be "cash poor" while having $500 million in debt.
- At one point, he owned $100 million in real estate.
- In 2020, he sold six homes in LA.
Salary & 2018 Compensation Plan
Elon Musk doesn't take a salary as Tesla's CEO. Instead, back in 2018, he set up a unique bonus plan that could be super profitable, depending on the company's market cap milestones. At the time, Tesla was valued at about $50 billion. Basically, the deal was that Elon would get big chunks of Tesla stock options—equal to 1% of the company—every time Tesla's market cap jumped by $50 billion and stayed there for at least three months.
The first batch of options came when Tesla hit a market cap of $100 billion, and he kept getting more as the company grew, all the way up to $600 billion. So, if Tesla reached that $600 billion mark, Elon would end up with options totaling 12% of the company. If he didn’t hit any of the 12 milestones, he wouldn’t get paid at all. Plus, he had a decade to make it happen.
It took Tesla a year to reach that first $100 billion milestone. Fast forward two years to December 2020, and the market cap soared to $600 billion. Just a year later, it peaked at $1.23 trillion, which pushed Elon’s net worth to a staggering $340 billion. At that point, Tesla's board confirmed that since Elon hit the $600 billion mark in under ten years, he was eligible for the full payout of his compensation plan. This meant he got around 300 million Tesla options, valued at about $55 billion by January 2024. But that wasn’t the end of the saga for Elon.
A few shareholders were pretty upset about his pay package. One of them even filed a lawsuit claiming it was way too generous and that the board, which Elon had too much influence over, approved it. On January 30, 2024, a judge in Delaware sided with the shareholder and pretty much canceled the whole compensation deal with just a gavel bang. Elon can appeal this decision, and he probably will, but it looks like the board will need to create a new pay plan for his work from 2018 to the end of 2023.
Early Life
Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa. He got his first computer when he was just ten years old and taught himself how to code. By the time he turned 12, he had already sold his first piece of software—a game he developed called Blaster. At 17, in 1989, he moved to Canada to go to Queen's University but switched gears in 1992 to study business and physics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Musk earned a degree in economics and then picked up another bachelor's in physics. He even started a PhD in energy physics at Stanford but decided to leave to dive into the internet boom.
Success
Musk kicked off his entrepreneurial journey with Zip2 Corporation, which served as an online city guide. In 1999, Compaq Computer scooped up Zip2 for a cool $307 million in cash and another $34 million in stock options. That same year, Musk co-founded X.com, a platform for online financial services and payments. The following year, X.com merged with another company, leading to the birth of PayPal as we know it today. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for a whopping $1.5 billion in stock.
In 2002, Musk launched his third venture, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, aiming to create spacecraft for commercial space travel. By 2008, SpaceX had made a name for itself, and NASA awarded them a contract for cargo transport to the International Space Station, with future plans for sending astronauts.
Then came Tesla Motors, a company focused on making electric cars more affordable for the masses. Founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Elon Musk, along with Ian Wright and J.B. Straubel, joined as the first employees and were later recognized as co-founders.
In June 2010, Tesla Motors went public, thanks to investments from Daimler and a partnership with Toyota, pulling in $226 million. Fast forward to 2012, and Musk made waves with SpaceX by launching the Falcon 9 rocket into space, carrying an unmanned capsule. Then in 2013, he introduced the Hyperloop concept, a new transportation system designed to travel over 700 mph between major cities using tubes instead of traditional railroads. Musk estimates that it could take about 7 to 10 years to develop, test, and get the Hyperloop up and running.
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Personal Life
Elon Musk has tied the knot three times, with two of those marriages being to actress Talulah Riley. His first marriage was to Canadian author Justine Wilson, which lasted from 2000 to 2008, and together they have five sons. He’s also had relationships with actress Amber Heard and Canadian musician Grimes. In May 2020, Grimes and Elon welcomed their son, X Æ A-Xii, and they had another child through a surrogate in December 2021.
Later in 2021, it was revealed that Elon also became a father to twins with one of his executives from Neuralink.
All in all, he has ten kids.
In July 2022, news broke that Elon had an affair in December 2021 with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. This affair reportedly prompted Sergey to file for divorce after four years of marriage. It’s a tough situation, especially since Sergey had been a strong supporter of Musk, investing in several of his ventures, including being an early backer of Tesla.
Real Estate
Elon used to have a real estate portfolio worth around $100 million in California. In Hillsborough, a Northern California town, he still owns a stunning 16,000-square-foot villa that's over a century old and sprawls across nearly 50 acres. He picked it up for $23.364 million back in 2017.
Down in Southern California, he had six properties in the upscale Bel-Air area. His Bel-Air collection featured a massive 20,000-square-foot house he bought for $17 million in 2012, a 7,000-square-foot pad for $20 million in 2015, and a 9,300-square-foot home he snagged in 2016 for $24.25 million. In 2020, he shocked everyone by saying he wanted to sell off all his possessions, starting with his homes in LA. He kept his promise and sold them all, including four homes to a single buyer in December 2020.
In Austin, Texas, Elon has several adjacent homes that he bought for a total of $35 million. One of these is a gorgeous 14,400-square-foot Tuscan-style mansion.
Elon Musk Net Worth History
On January 1, 2020, Elon Musk's net worth was sitting at $28 billion. By the end of that year, it skyrocketed to $170 billion.
On July 13, 2020, he reached a milestone of $80 billion for the first time, with $15 billion coming from SpaceX and $65 billion from Tesla.
In August 2020, two key events pushed his net worth past $90 billion. First, around mid-August, Tesla's stock soared to an all-time high of $1,900, giving the company a market cap of $350 billion. With his 20% stake, that meant $70 billion for Elon.
The second boost came on August 18, 2020, when SpaceX's valuation jumped from $36 billion to $46 billion after a funding round, adding $22 billion to his net worth thanks to his 48% stake.
On November 17, 2020, he crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time, overtaking Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world.
Just a week later, on November 24, his net worth hit $128 billion, making him the second-richest after surpassing Bill Gates. At that point, he was $54 billion behind Jeff Bezos, whose net worth was $184 billion, marking a $100 billion increase since the start of the year.
Finally, on January 7, 2021, Elon reached $195 billion, officially becoming the richest person in the world, surpassing Jeff Bezos for the first time.
On January 8, 2021, Elon wrapped up the week with a net worth of $210 billion, up from $170 billion at the start. By October 2021, with Tesla's market cap soaring past $1 trillion and SpaceX valued at $100 billion, his net worth climbed to $300 billion.
Then, on November 1, 2021, as Tesla's market cap reached $1.2 trillion, Elon’s wealth jumped to $335 billion.
However, on December 13, 2022, he lost the title of the world's richest person, with his net worth of $165 billion falling behind Bernard Arnault's $167 billion.
By the end of 2022, Elon’s fortune had dropped to $134 billion, a staggering $200 billion less than the previous year.
Fast forward to the end of 2023, and he was back at $210 billion.
In November 2024, his net worth soared to $348 billion.
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Elon Musk, with a net worth of $348 billion, is the wealthiest person in the world as of November 2024. His fortune primarily stems from his stake in Tesla, SpaceX, and his ventures like Twitter (now known as X). In contrast, former U.S. President Donald Trump has a much smaller but still significant fortune, estimated around $2.5 billion, primarily from real estate, golf courses, and branding.
Trump's wealth has been a topic of public discussion, especially during his presidency and recent legal challenges. Both Musk and Trump continue to have a significant impact on global business and politics, though their paths diverge in their industries and influence.
