Elon Musk has a net worth of around $182 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates.
But the tech mogul’s wealth comes from multiple sources and is not stable. Musk is currently the third richest person in the world and other billionaires are also hot on his heels: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is currently $5 billion below Musk, while Bill Gates sits at $24 billion. of dollars behind Zuckerberg.
Only Bernard Arnault and Jeff Bezos currently have great wealth.
How has Musk’s net worth changed over time?
Musk, born in South Africa, moved to Canada and dropped out of his doctoral studies. at Stanford, became a millionaire before he was 30. Musk started Zip2, a website that provided travel guides to newspapers, with his brother Kimbal Musk, and sold it to Compaq for more than $300 million in 1999. Musk, then 27, is believed that he got $22 million from this deal.
He then co-founded the online bank ousted as CEO, Musk walked away with about $165. million.
Musk co-founded the space exploration company SpaceX in 2002. In 2004, he became an investor and chairman of the electric vehicle company Tesla.
During the 2008 financial crisis, he saved Tesla from bankruptcy with a $40 million investment and a $40 million loan. The same year, he was named CEO of Tesla.
Musk said 2008 was “the worst year of my life.” Along with problems in his personal life, Tesla continued to lose money and SpaceX had difficulty launching the first version of its Falcon rocket. In 2009, Musk was living on personal loans.
But Tesla went public in 2010, and Musk’s estimated net worth has steadily increased. In 2012, he debuted on Forbes’ billionaires list with an estimated fortune of $2 billion.
In 2016, Musk created the tunneling company the Boring Company.
The following year, he founded the neurotechnology startup Neuralink.
Musk’s net worth began to rise rapidly at the start of the pandemic as Tesla’s stock prices soared. Musk began 2020 with an estimated net worth of just under $30 billion and was worth around $170 billion just a year later, a five-fold increase in just one year. His estimated fortune peaked at around $340 billion as of November 2021.
But it has fallen since then: Tesla shares were down 56% at the end of January 2024, bringing the company’s value from more than $1.2 trillion to less than $600 billion.
Musk also purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022, serving as CEO until stepping down in early June 2023.
Where does Musk’s fortune come from?
Musk’s wealth depends largely on Tesla shares. Although he receives no salary from Tesla, he is granted stock options when the company hits difficult performance indicators.
“Elon will receive no guaranteed compensation of any kind – no salary, no cash bonuses, and no stock that vests simply over time,” Tesla said in 2018 when the company announced a 10-year performance award. years for Musk. “Instead, Elon’s only compensation will be a 100% at-risk performance award, which ensures that he will only be compensated if Tesla and all of its shareholders achieve extraordinary results.”
According to Bloomberg, almost half of Elon Musk’s net worth comes from Tesla stock, while just over 20% comes from SpaceX stock.
The rest of his wealth comes from shares in Twitter and The Boring Company, as well as other miscellaneous debts.
businessinsider
