It's hard to ignore Elon Musk thanks to his high-profile celebrity status. For better or worse, his name and bank account are attached to some of the biggest movers and shakers when it comes to innovative businesses.
From SpaceX attempting to colonize the great beyond to Neuralink working to translate brainwaves to binary, Musk's portfolio of businesses are some of the most likely to sound like they came from a sci-fi comic book. And future-tech is expensive!
He certainly acts like the richest man in the world. But is he?
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Elon Musk’s Net Worth
According to Forbes, Elon Musk is currently worth $251.1 billion. His shares in Tesla (TSLA) -) and SpaceX account for the largest portion of his wealth. At the time of this writing, Elon Musk holds the title of the richest person in the world, followed by the Arnault family, which owns Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMHF) -), and Amazon (AMZN) -) billionaire Jeff Bezos.
Musk's long-time rival, Meta Platform's (META) -) Mark Zuckerberg, ranks number 8 on the list at $103.5 billion.
Musk currently has a very full plate -- along with his status as CEO at Tesla and SpaceX, he's founded The Boring Company, X Corp, and who can forget his contentious takeover of social media platform Twitter?
Where Did Elon Musk's Wealth Come From?
Musk originally hails from South Africa and was born into a wealthy family, the oldest of three kids. His father, Errol Musk, was a politician, engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer.
Rumors have circulated that a portion of the family's wealth came from partial ownership of a Zambian emerald mine. Elon has denied the existence of the mine despite his father's claims to the contrary. To date, no evidence has detailed labor practices or profits gained from said mine.
Musk's first venture was a city guide software developed in collaboration with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri called Zip2. Errol Musk acted as an angel investor for the company, providing $28,000 in start-up capital. That company later sold for $307 million.
Using $12 million of that, Elon funded X.com, a direct bank that eventually became a part of PayPal in 2000.
How Much of Tesla Does Elon Musk Own?
Elon Musk is probably best known as a co-founder and early investor in the electric vehicle breakout company Tesla. After hauling in a pretty penny for Ebay's acquisition of PayPal, Musk used $100 million to co-found his biggest future-tech companies, SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla in 2004.
Musk became CEO of Tesla in 2008.
OpenAI, The Boring Company, & More
Musk and his money are also involved in other futuristic ventures. In 2015, Musk became involved with the nonprofit OpenAI, which has, for better or worse, brought artificial intelligence to the mainstream.
One year later, Musk founded Neuralink, which seeks to develop brain-computer interfaces. He's also the founder of The Boring Company, a tunnel construction service aiming to reduce the cost of transportation.
Elon Musk Buys Twitter
In October of 2022, Elon Musk purchased the social media platform Twitter for $44 billion. Now run by Musk's company X Corp, Twitter has bounced around a few ideas for monetization, including the infamous paid-verification blue checkmark system.
In early July of 2023, the feud between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg escalated to new heights when Meta announced its new "Twitter-killer" app called Threads. Nearly two months prior, Musk had stepped down as the CEO of Twitter, placing Linda Yaccarino in charge of the platform. As of now, only time will tell if Musk and Yaccarino can stand up to Meta's competitive social media conglomerate.
