Business magnate Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, starting 2025 with a net worth of around $425 billion. That dwarfs the net worth of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, who weighs in at around $241 billion. Most people know Musk as the Tesla and SpaceX executive, and that he is taking a prominent role in the incoming Trump administration as co-head of the new Department of Government Efficiency.
Few people really grasp the extent of the companies he masterminds, or the successes he has logged in getting to where he is today.
No matter from which perspective a person views Musk and his accomplishments, there is no question that his influence continues to grow. Here is a look at his business empire.
Tesla
- Role: CEO, director.
- Ownership: 12.8% as of Jan. 2, 2025, according to FactSet.
- Headquarters: Austin, Texas.
- Employees: 140,473.
- Business focus: Manufactures electric vehicles, batteries, charging stations and renewable energy solutions, including solar energy through its SolarCity acquisition.
- The Tesla Model Y was the fourth-bestselling vehicle in the U.S. through the first half of 2024, according to Kelley Blue Book.
- Revenue: $99.58 billion expected for 2024. Tesla generated $96.77 billion in revenue for fiscal 2023.
- Founding: Incorporated in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk was a key early investor with a $7.5 million Series A funding round and joined the board as chairman in 2004. Musk took over as CEO in 2008. Eberhard in 2009 sued Musk, alleging libel and slander after Musk called himself Tesla's founder and made public disparaging remarks. The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed sum that year, and allowed other Tesla executives, JB Straubel and Ian Wright, to also claim the title of Tesla founder.
- Subsidiaries: Tesla Energy Operations, Tesla Automation, Riviera Tool, Domino Solar, Harpoon Solar, Arpad Solar Borrower, Tesla Engineering Germany, LML Warehouse, FocalPoint Solar Borrower, Tesla Shanghai.
- Competitors: Rivian, Li Auto, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other major car brands.
SpaceX
- Role: CEO, director, co-founder.
- Ownership: 42%, according to Bloomberg.
- Headquarters: Hawthorne, Calif.
- Employees: 15,459 as of September 2024, according to FactSet.
- Business focus: Designs, manufactures and launches various advanced rockets, satellites and spacecraft. The company develops crew and cargo capsules, engines, tank structures, equipment, control software and various mission-critical components. SpaceX also provides launch services for commercial and government operations.
- Revenue: $7.892 billion as of December 2023, according to FactSet.
- Founding: Founded with Tom Mueller in 2002.
- Subsidiaries: Starlink Services, Pioneer Aerospace, SpaceX SA, Swarm Technologies, Dogleg Park.
- Competitors: AST SpaceMobile, Boeing, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Rocket Lab, United Launch Alliance (Lockheed Martin, Boeing venture), Northrop Grumman and NASA.
X Corp. (Formerly Twitter)
- Role: Executive chairman, chief technology officer.
- Ownership: Reports indicate Musk owns upward of 70% of the social media platform, with the remaining stake held by investors in the buyout. Musk in January 2022 purchased just over a 9% stake in Twitter prior to the acquisition.
- Headquarters: San Francisco.
- Employees: 7,500.
- Business focus: X is a global social networking and real-time communication platform with more than 255 million monthly active users around the world, according to FactSet. Musk has expressed a desire to evolve X into an "everything app." Ideas for new features include payment functions, streaming capabilities, voice calling and email.
- Revenue: $5.077 billion as of Dec. 31, 2021.
- Founding: Founded in 2006. Musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in April 2022, representing a 38% premium at the time, and took the company private.
- Parent firm: X Holding.
- Subsidiaries: Gnip, TweetDeck, Crashytics, Yes, Smallthought Systems, BackType, Peer, Mixer Labs, TellApart, Context Media Technologies, ZipDial Mobile Solutions, Bagcheck, Afterlive.tv, Hotspots, Vine Labs, Ubalo, Mesagraph, Apps & Zerts, The Niche Project, Bounty Labs, Twitter Ventures, Drive Scale, Magic Pony Technology, Highly, Locomatix, Aiden, Revue Holding, Breaker, Olabot, Crossinstall, Fabula AI, Sphere Knowledge, Scroll Labs, Ueno, Quill /US/, Openback, Reshuffle
- Competitors: Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads), Reddit, BlueSky, Discord, TikTok, Tumblr, Mastodon and Snapchat.
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Neuralink
- Role: CEO, co-founder.
- Ownership: Unavailable.
- Headquarters: Fremont, Calif.
- Employees: 294 as of July 1, 2024
- Business focus: Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface that allows users to control devices and machines with their thoughts. The goal is to help people with paralysis or physical impairments regain control over their limbs or prosthetics. Noland Arbaugh, 29, in January 2024 was the first human implanted with Neuralink's chip implant, called Telepathy. Arbaugh has demonstrated the ability to control digital devices since the implant, after suffering a spinal cord injury that led to quadriplegia.
- Revenue: $5.07 million as of Nov. 19, 2024.
- Founding: 2016.
- Subsidiaries: None.
- Competitors: Synchron, BrainGate, Clinatec, BlackRock Neurotech, Paradromics, Kernel, Precision Neuroscience.
X.AI (xAI)
- Role: CEO.
- Ownership: Musk stated that investors in X would own 25% of X.AI, CNBC previously reported. Forbes estimates Musk owns 54% of xAI.
- Headquarters: Burlingame, Calif.
- Employees: Not available.
- Business focus: X.AI develops artificial intelligence technologies to perform data analysis, develop machine and language learning models, and produce image, video and other content creation. X.AI powers the Grok chatbot on social media platform X. Musk also plans to use X.AI to help train Tesla's AI technology and self-driving functions.
- Revenue: Around $100 million (Source: TechCrunch).
- Founding: 2023.
- Subsidiaries: None.
- Competitors: OpenAI/ChatGPT, Alphabet's DeepMind, Anothropic, Baidu, IBM Watson, Midjourney
The Boring Co. (TBC)
- Role: Founder, co-CEO.
- Ownership: 90%, according to December 2018 reports from the Wall Street Journal. SpaceX received about 6% of Boring stock based on the value of land, time and other resources contributed when creating the company.
- Headquarters: Pflugerville, Texas.
- Employees: 19 as of Nov. 19, 2024, according to FactSet.
- Business focus: The Boring Co. provides construction, tunneling and drilling services. The company's focus is to ease urban traffic congestion, with notable projects including the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop. The Boring Co. in 2018 also retailed a flamethrower.
- Revenue: $23.44 million as of July 1, 2024.
- Founding: Musk announced plans for the Boring Co. in December 2016 and registered TBC in January 2017.
- Subsidiaries: None.
- Competitors: Herrenknecht AG, SMT Scharf, Epiroc, Meerman Machines, TransPod, Baker Hughes, Precision Drilling, Seadrill, Schlumberger.
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Other Ventures
OpenAI
- Role: Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and other Silicon Valley leaders. OpenAI raised $45 million from Musk and more than $90 million from other donors in its early funding round. Musk resigned from his role as co-chair of OpenAI in 2018 following disagreements over equity, board control and the role of CEO.
- Musk in March 2024 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging that it violated its original contract as a nonprofit venture. OpenAI argues that Musk was the mastermind for a for-profit structure and withheld funding amid the battle over the company's direction. OpenAI in 2019 began transitioning to a for-profit structure. Today, OpenAI operates as a capped for-profit entity, which the company claims is controlled by its nonprofit arm.
Zip2
- Role: Musk's first startup, founded in 1995 with Greg Kouri and Elon's brother Kimbal. Zip2 focused on building a searchable business directory that included phone numbers and relevant maps. Mohr Davidow Ventures in 1996 invested $3 million in the company for majority ownership. Musk was replaced as CEO by Richard Sorkin but remained as executive vice president and CTO. Musk facilitated the sale of Zip2 in 1999 to Compaq Computer Corp. for $307 million after pushing the board to oust Sorkin following a disagreement over business policies. Zip2 became a unit of the search engine Alta Vista.
PayPal (Formerly X.com)
- Role: Following the sale of Zip2, Musk in January 1999 co-founded online financial services firm X.com with Ed Ho, Harris Fricker and Christopher Payne. Fricker was fired by Musk five months after X.com was founded, with Payne and Ho leaving shortly after. Musk reportedly invested $12 million into the company, which officially launched in December 1999. Former Intuit CEO Bill Harris served as the inaugural CEO.
- X.com in March 2000 merged with rival Confinity, which was the parent company of PayPal. The merged company began operating under the PayPal name, with Musk as the biggest shareholder and CEO. In September 2000, the board voted to replace Musk as CEO in favor of Peter Thiel, who co-founded Confinity. The internet domain was changed to PayPal.com in June 2001. Musk repurchased the rights to the x.com domain in July 2017.
