Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
Tech mogul Elon Musk has an estimated net worth of $199 billion (equivalent to €187 billion).
His estimated wealth peaked at about $340 billion (equivalent to €316 billion) in November 2021, when Tesla shares soared.
Musk often goes head-to-head with LVMH’s Bernard Arnault for the title of world‘s richest man.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
According to estimates, Elon Musk has… Bloomberg has a net worth of around 199 billion dollars (equivalent to 187 billion euros).
However, the tech mogul’s fortune comes from various sources and is not stable – it has fallen from 239 billion (equivalent to 222 billion euros) in just a few months, which cost him the title of the richest man in the world. Other tech billionaires are also hot on his heels: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ net worth is only $15 billion (equivalent to €14 billion) less than Musk’s.
How has Musk’s fortune developed?
Musk, who was born in South Africa, moved to Canada and dropped out of his doctoral studies at Stanford, became a millionaire before he turned 30. Musk, along with his brother Kimbal Musk, founded Zip2, a website that provided travel guides for newspapers, and sold it to Compaq in 1999 for more than $300 million (equivalent to €278 million). Musk, who was 27 at the time, is said to have received $22 million (equivalent to €20 million) from the deal.
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In 1999 he co-founded the online bank X.com. This soon merged with Peter Thiel’s Confinity to form PayPal, and the company was bought by eBay in 2002 for 1.5 billion dollars (equivalent to 1.39 billion euros). Although he was removed as CEO, Musk received around $165 million (equivalent to €153 million).
Musk co-founded the space exploration company SpaceX in 2002. In 2004, he became an investor and chairman of the EV company Tesla. During the 2008 financial crisis, he saved Tesla from bankruptcy with an investment of $40 million and a loan of $40 million (equivalent to 37 billion euros each). That same year, he was named CEO of Tesla.
Musk said 2008 was “the worst year of my life.” In addition to problems in his personal life, Tesla continued to make losses and SpaceX would have had difficulty launching the first version of its Falcon rocket. In 2009, Musk was living on personal loans.
The Tesla IPO made Elon Musk even richer
But in 2010, Tesla went public, and Musk’s estimated net worth steadily increased. In 2012, he appeared on the Forbes list of billionaires for the first time with an estimated fortune of $2 billion (equivalent to 1.86 billion euros).
In 2016, Musk founded the tunneling company Boring Company. The following year he founded the neurotechnology startup Neuralink.
Musk’s net worth began a rapid rise at the start of the pandemic as Tesla shares soared. Musk began 2020 with an estimated net worth of just under $30 billion (equivalent to €28 billion) and was worth around $170 billion (equivalent to €158 billion) just a year later – a more than five-fold increase in just one year. In November 2021, his estimated wealth reached a peak of around $340 billion (equivalent to €316 billion).
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However, it has fallen since then: Tesla shares fell 56 percent by the end of January 2024, taking the company’s value from over $1.2 trillion (equivalent to €1.1 trillion) to under $600 billion (equivalent to €550 billion). sank.
Musk also bought Twitter for $44 billion (equivalent to €41 billion) in October 2022 and served as CEO there until his resignation at the beginning of June.
Where does Musk’s wealth come from?
Musk’s wealth is largely dependent on Tesla shares. Although he does not receive a salary from Tesla, he receives stock options if the company achieves demanding performance metrics.
“Elon will receive no guaranteed compensation of any kind — no salary, no cash bonuses, and no stock that vests simply over time,” Tesla said in 2018 when the company announced a 10-year incentive bonus for Musk. “Instead, Elon’s only compensation will be a 100 percent risk premium, ensuring he will only be compensated if Tesla and all of its shareholders perform exceptionally well.”
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According to Bloomberg data, almost half of Musk’s net worth comes from Tesla shares, while just over 20 percent comes from SpaceX shares. The rest of his wealth comes from shares in Twitter and The Boring Company, as well as various other liabilities.
How does Musk compare to other billionaires?
Musk is often contended with other billionaires for the title of richest person in the world.
LVMH founder Bernard Arnault has just taken this title from Musk with a net worth of around 218 billion US dollars (according to Bloomberg, equivalent to 202 billion euros). Rounding out the top five are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with $192 billion (178 billion euros), Facebook founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with $166 billion (154 billion euros) and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison with $145 billion ( 134 billion euros).