Elon Musk's net worth hits $500 billion, halfway to becoming the first trillionaire

Elon Musk has achieved the milestone of becoming the first person in history worth half a trillion dollars. The Tesla chief and the richest person in the world is now worth $500 billion and is halfway to becoming the world’s first trillionaire. The former head of US President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is ahead by $150 billion of the runner-up, Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires tracker.

$9.3 billion from Tesla shares

Several factors led to Musk’s financial feat. Tesla’s shares shot up by 4 per cent on Wednesday (October 1), adding about $9.3 billion to Musk’s fortune, with investors buoyed by the prospect of a refocused Musk after he stepped down as DOGE chief.

The stock prices of the EV giant have nearly doubled ever since he announced in the company’s April earnings that he would be stepping down as the DOGE head to focus on Tesla.

With the market cap of Tesla returning within 10 per cent of the all-time high reached in December, the current value of Musk’s 12 per cent stake in the company is worth $191 billion, according to Forbes.

“And that’s excluding performance-based Tesla stock options from Musk’s 2018 CEO compensation package that would be worth $133 billion today if the award hadn’t been voided by a Delaware judge in January 2024,” added the report.

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How SpaceX, xAI contributed

SpaceX has also had a key role in giving Musk a major push toward potentially becoming the world’s first trillionaire with the net worth of the company, founded in 2022, currently worth $400 billion as per a private tender offer in August, up from $350 billion last December. Musk’s estimated 42 per cent stake in SpaceX is worth $ 168 billion.

The xAI holdings, founded by Musk in March, were created after he merged his new artificial intelligence company xAI with the social media company he acquired in 2022, X, pushing up the value of the new company to $113 billion. Musk’s 53 per cent stake in xAI Holdings is worth $60 billion.

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Musk’s other financial milestones

However, reaching the half-a-trillion-dollar net worth mark is just the latest of a series of financial milestones Musk has achieved over the past five years. From being worth just $24.6 billion in March 2020, Musk became the fifth person ever worth $100 billion in August 2020. In 2021, he became the world’s richest person for the first time in January 2021, with a net worth of nearly $190 billion.

“Then, in September 2021, he became the third person ever worth $200 billion (after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Frenchman Bernard Arnault of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH). Musk went on to hit $300 billion in November 2021 and $400 billion in December 2024,” reported Forbes.

The report further stated that at this pace, Musk can become the world’s first trillionaire before March 2033.