WASHINGTON – In a milestone marking the staggering concentration of wealth in the digital age, billionaire Elon Musk, already the world’s richest individual, briefly became the first person in history to achieve a net worth of $500 billion this week. The unprecedented surge places him nearly halfway toward becoming the planet’s first trillionaire, according to financial reporting by Forbes magazine.
The 54-year-old CEO of Tesla and SpaceX saw his net worth peak at $500.1 billion on Wednesday before quickly dipping back to $499.1 billion, as reported by the publication’s “Real-Time Billionaires” tracker. This monumental valuation was primarily fueled by a significant rebound in shares of his electric vehicle company, Tesla, recovering losses incurred amid the turbulence surrounding his recent, and often heavily scrutinized, involvement in politics.
Musk’s financial dominance is unparalleled. The Forbes list ranks him far ahead of his closest competitors: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison holds the second spot with a net worth of $350.7 billion, followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $245.8 billion. The half-trillion-dollar figure highlights the vast and growing chasm separating the tech titan from the rest of the world’s ultra-rich.
The South African-born entrepreneur’s journey to this pinnacle of wealth began decades ago. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and briefly attending Stanford, Musk secured his first major fortune by selling an online publishing software company to US computer maker Compaq for more than $300 million in 1999. His ventures led him through the creation of a company that merged with PayPal, before he founded the space exploration firm SpaceX in 2002 and became chairman of the electric carmaker Tesla in 2004, the two cornerstone companies driving his current, unprecedented valuation.
