Ever since Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, and lately Chief Twit, got dethroned by Bernard Arnault as the Richest Man in the World, netizens want to know the billionaire’s next move and wait to catch sight of Elon Musk’s Net Worth.
Musk has been in the controversial limelight more than ever since he took over Twitter. Much to the ire of investors, Musk’s decisions are worrying his SpaceX and Tesla teams, because they claim it is leading his prized company Tesla to trials and tribulations, with shares suffering a grisly bloodbath.
The first time Musk ranked with the distinction of the World’s Richest Man was in 2021, when he superseded Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos. Due to his personal style of leadership, Elon Musk’s success has been compared to the likes of business magnates in US history, including Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs. This has also leered criticisms, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak taking a jab at Tesla’s unfulfilled promises.
Albeit Tesla’s stock rose 100 percent, attributed to the inverse quotient between cheaper car prices and rising demand since January 2023, an S&P report predicted the EV Carmaker’s decline due to strong competition.
Here’s a brief outlook on one of the richest men in the world, Elon Musk’s Net Worth, and how he became 2021 TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year by scaling the pinnacle of the business world.
Elon Musk: A Brief History:
Hailing from the native South African community, Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, to Maye (Model and Nutritionist) and Errol Musk (Electromechanical engineer). After his parents’ divorce in 1980, Musk spent his childhood with his father, which he described as a period of ‘great adversity’.
Musk began self-studying when programming piqued his interest at the age of nine and was enrolled in the private school, Waterkloof House Preparatory School where he was bullied awfully by his peers. Using technology as a means to escape the terrible circumstances, Musk gained interest in Commodore VIC-20, an inexpensive home computer. He was proficient enough to create Blastar – a Space Invaders-styled video game whose sale to PC Magazine earned him $500.7.
At the ripe age of 17, Musk obtained Canadian citizenship through his mother after emigrating to Ontario’s Queen’s University. He met his future wife, Justin Wilson during his college years with whom he went on to have five sons together, before separating in 2008. Additional accolades included a graduate degree in Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Wharton School. Physics is imbued deeply in Musk’s framework.
“Boil things down to fundamental truths and just reason up from there.”
With Silicon Valley booming, Musk dropped out of his PhD in Applied Physics at Stanford University when he was just 24 years old, with entrepreneurial ideas in his head.
A Successful Business Telltale: Elon Musk’s Net Worth:
Elon Musk’s net worth and global fame are owed to two of his biggest and most technologically-advanced companies – SpaceX and Tesla, in addition to profitability and chaos from PayPal and Twitter. Prior to Tesla’s launch in 2004, Musk predicted that the future of the world was electric and was an early investor in numerous tech companies. At a point in history, Elon Musk had to borrow money for rent, with his substantial investments of millions in his companies.
“$100 million in SpaceX, $70 million in Tesla, and $10 million in SolarCity, from the PayPal buyout profit.”
X.Com:
With his younger brother Kimbal and a staggering $15,000 in his pocket, Musk started a software company named Zip2, which helped newspapers build online city guides, in 1995. On being acquired for $341 million by Compaq Computer Corp in 1999, Musk created X.Com with the buyout money. X.Com was a fintech venture which merged with money transfer firm Confinity – resulting in the birth of PayPal. After Peter Thiel ousted him as CEO, eBay’s $1.5 billion acquisition of the company still landed favorably for Musk. His 11.7 percent stake in PayPal resulted in a buyout profit after tax, of about $180 million.
Tesla:
Following his passion for electric cars, Musk contributed $6.3 million as an early investor and began a team with engineer Martin Eberhard to run Tesla Motors. After Eberhard was ousted in 2007 as CEO, Musk assumed the role of the product architect and CEO, under which the world’s most valuable electric automobile maker, Tesla Inc flourished lavishly. Under Tesla’s electric nature, it maintains a robust rhythm in the solar energy sector by manufacturing rechargeable solar batteries under SolarCity.
SpaceX:
With another belief for future dwellers on other planets, Musk used most of his PayPal buyout proceeds to fund a private space company, SpaceX – Space Exploration Technologies Corp, in 2002. Musk has taken this company to newer heights by scoring high-profile contracts with NASA and the U.S. Air Force to design space launch rockets and also revealed future plans of collaborating with NASA to send astronauts to Mars by 2025.
Twitter:
Becoming Chief Twit has taken a toll – Musk admitted to burning out and being overworked over Twitter’s debacles and lack of management, leading to the effect of Tesla.In April 2022, Musk disclosed a 9.1 percent stake in the social media company, Twitter. Twitterati offered him a seat on the board, which he later declined. Musk then proposed to buy the company at $54.20 per share – $46.5 billion. After a tug-of-war between court lawsuits and discouragements from Tesla and SpaceX boards, Musk was free of the wrangling and took control of Twitter in October 2022.
The market value of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter has made significant strides to Elon Musk’s net worth in addition to solar power manufacturing. Despite his fortune, it is alleged that Musk bears no income taxes. According to the Forbes Billionaire Index, Elon Musk’s Net Worth is $184.7 billion.
Musk’s early interest in philosophy and science fiction has worked wonders for him in the business world. He promises to shape the technological future by disrupting industries over his notable interest in identifying industries crucial to humanity’s future, such as space exploration, renewable energy sources, and the internet. With all game-changers in play, despite bumps, PayPal, Tesla Inc, SpaceX, and SolarCity have earned him billions.
