Elon Musk often makes headlines – whether it’s for rebranding Twitter as X, his brief political stint in Trump’s administration or SpaceX’s highly-anticipated IPO towards the end of this week.
Musk has been the richest person in the world since 2021 – except for once when Oracle’s Larry Ellison surpassed him in September 2025.
Elon Musk’s net worth over the years
(Image credit: James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images)
Elon Musk’s net worth is $716 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth is more than twice that of Larry Page, the second-richest person and co-founder of Google. Page has a fortune of $309 billion.
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Musk’s net worth has grown substantially over the past few years, driven largely by his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.
In 2016, he was worth $10.7 billion. Just a decade later, he has surpassed the $700 billion mark – a feat no one has achieved before.
But where did it all begin?
Musk was born in South Africa on 28 June 1971. From an early age, he showed an interest in technology and innovation.
His first major success came with Zip2, a company that provided online business directories and maps to newsletters. In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for nearly $300 million, paving the way for Musk into the tech industry.
Musk used proceeds from the sale to launch X.com, an online payment platform that eventually evolved into PayPal. In 2002, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion.
That same year, Musk used $100 million of his own fortune to start SpaceX, aiming to make space exploration more accessible and colonise Mars.
In June 2026, SpaceX is set to go public at $135 per share. The firm is expected to raise approximately $75 billion, which could make SpaceX the latest initial public offering of all time.
In 2004, Musk joined Tesla Motors and became the company’s CEO four years later. Under his leadership, Tesla emerged as one of the world’s most electric vehicle companies. At the time of writing, Tesla has a market capitalisation of $1.28 trillion.
Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk co-founded solar panel installation firm SolarCity, neurotechnology company Neuralink and tunnel construction firm The Boring Company.
Elon Musk’s other investments
(Image credit: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
While the majority of Musk’s wealth comes from his business ventures, his influence stretches far beyond the tech world.
He was a prominent Donald Trump supporter during the 2024 US elections, and later served as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though he has since departed DOGE to focus on Tesla.
Musk has built up a vast property empire over the years. In 2020, he stated on X that he would sell all his “physical possessions” and “own no house”. At that time, the asking prices for his seven homes were more than $100 million, according to Architectural Digest, including a 16,000-square-foot home in Los Angeles, which sold for $29 million.
I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.May 1, 2020
After shedding his property portfolio, Musk moved into a tiny home in Boca Chica, Texas, close to the SpaceX headquarters. In 2022, he bought a 6,900-square-foot mansion in West Lake Hills, Texas, worth $6 million.
The billionaire has also built his own company town called Starbase, named after his rocket launch site, on the southern tip of Texas. The city covers around 1.6 square miles and is home to some 500 people, according to The Guardian.
The Tesla CEO has a large collection of cars, ranging from a Ford Model T, a 1997 McLaren F1, a Tesla Roadster and the 1976 Lotus Espirit that James Bond drove in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me. Musk bought it at an auction in 2013 for nearly $1 million, according to the BBC. He also owns private jets, each worth millions of dollars.
While Musk doesn’t donate his wealth as generously as other billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, he still gives away billions in shares to charities. He has an organisation called the Musk Foundation, with more than $14 billion in assets. However, The New York Times reported that the charity failed to give away the minimum amount required by law for the fourth year in a row.
How does Elon Musk manage his wealth?
With so many billions to his name, it’s not surprising that Elon Musk has a wealth manager. His fortunes are handled by Excession LLC, a single-family office formed in 2016. It’s run by James Birchall, Musk’s trusted advisor and CEO of Neuralink.
We explore whether you should get a financial adviser, and how much you should be paying them in separate pieces.
