SAN FRANCISCO, US – Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has achieved a historic financial milestone, momentarily crossing the half-trillion-dollar mark. According to a report by Forbes magazine on Wednesday, Musk briefly reached a net worth of $500.1 billion, solidifying his position and placing him nearly halfway to becoming the planet’s first-ever ‘trillionaire’.
The surge in wealth, confirmed by the publication’s “Real-Time Billionaires” tracker, saw the 54-year-old’s fortune hit the $500.1 billion threshold before slightly dipping back to $499.1 billion. The unprecedented gain is largely attributed to a significant rebound in shares of his electric vehicle company, Tesla, following a period of investor concern over his extensive political activity, alongside soaring valuations of his other ventures, including SpaceX.
Trailing Musk on the Forbes list is Oracle CEO Larry Ellison with a net worth of $350.7 billion, followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $245.8 billion, highlighting the vast gap created by Musk’s multi-industry dominance.
The South African-born entrepreneur’s financial journey began in 1999 when he banked his first millions by selling an online publishing software company to US computer maker Compaq for over $300 million, shortly after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and dropping out of Stanford. His next company eventually merged into PayPal. After departing that venture, Musk founded the private space rocket company SpaceX in 2002 and became the chairman of the electric carmaker Tesla in 2004, laying the foundation for his unparalleled financial empire.
