Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX IPO

While Elon Musk’s rise to trillionaire is largely due to SpaceX, it was Tesla that initially powered his rise up the ranks of the world’s richest. Photo by Alain JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images

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In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented, “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.”

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Now the world’s richest person can put that maxim to an even bigger test as he adds a new title: world’s first trillionaire.

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SpaceX shares opened at US$150 each, 11 per cent above their offering price after they began trading in New York on Friday, valuing the rocket and AI-company Musk founded at roughly US$2 trillion. His fortune now stands at the once-unimaginable figure of almost US$1.05 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s more than three times that of the world’s second-richest person, Google co-founder Larry Page.

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It was less than 10 years ago that Bloomberg’s wealth index registered its first fortune of more than US$100 billion — a milestone Musk blew past in 2020. He has since come to dominate the ranks of the world’s richest, first as Tesla Inc. evolved into one of the all-time best performing stocks and later as investors scrambled for a piece of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., as SpaceX is formally known, now among the world’s most valuable companies.

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A trillion-dollar fortune — roughly equivalent to Switzerland’s gross domestic product — almost defies comprehension. Steve Cohen, who made US$3.4 billion last year as the world’s highest-earning hedge fund manager, would have to earn that amount for almost 300 years before reaching a trillion. Each of Musk’s 14 children would rank 29th among the world’s richest individuals if they inherited equal shares of his estate.

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“We’re not talking about generational wealth,” said Dan Walter, an independent pay consultant. “We’re talking about infinite.”

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It’s a watershed moment for Musk, 54, whose wealth has already made him one of the globe’s most powerful and divisive individuals. And he hasn’t hesitated to deploy his fortune in pursuit of his vision: Buying social-media company Twitter in 2022 to defend against “the woke mind virus,” funding an AI chatbot that embraces much of his worldview and helping propel Donald Trump to a second term in the White House through donations.

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The more than US$291 million he spent on the 2024 federal election represents less than 0.03 per cent of his current net worth — the equivalent of a US$291 donation for a millionaire.

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Bumpy Road

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Still, Musk’s journey from billionaire to trillionaire has had its share of hiccups.

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His purchase of Twitter in 2022 led him to sell more than US$15 billion in Tesla shares, helping sink the car company’s stock for what quickly looked like an overpay. The US$56 billion Tesla “moonshot” compensation deal he negotiated in 2018 was struck down by a Delaware judge after some investors filed a lawsuit. And his decision to join Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and support for fringe political movements turned off millions of potential customers, shrinking Tesla’s car sales.

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Somehow, though, Musk skated through. Twitter, later renamed X, saw the value of its data soar from AI demand, and he eventually merged it with xAI, his own artificial intelligence startup. Tesla relocated to Texas from California and last year won an appeal allowing Musk to keep his original pay package, while also awarding him a new deal worth as much as US$1 trillion if the company meets certain targets. And Tesla’s investors have looked past declining car sales to focus on future offerings like robotaxis and Optimus robots.