Elon Musk's net worth:
According the most recent data available, Elon Musk’s net worth is estimated to be between $335 billion and $396 billion.1,2
Elon Musk’s net worth, according the most recent data available, is estimated to be between $335 billion and $396 billion.3,4 The tech mogul is the richest person in the world by a significant margin, despite the value of his assets less liabilities dwindling to some degree over the past year.
Musk’s net worth is mainly tied to the value of his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla’s share price plummeted substantially in the first four months of 2025 due to the threat of U.S. tariffs and consumers boycotting the brand, which caused his net worth to fluctuate.
Tesla stock price
How did Elon Musk make his fortune?
Elon Musk made his first million during the dot-com bubble. In 1995, the tech visionary, armed with a loan from his father, helped create Zip2, an online yellow pages telephone directory with maps included. Four years later, in 1999, Compaq bought the company for $307 million when Musk was only 27 years old.5
Musk used his proceeds from the deal to cofound an online payment company. It paid off again. His second major venture developed into PayPal, which was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.6
Rather than take an early retirement, Musk continued to reinvest his profits. His next move was to plow his fortune into an up-and-coming electric car company he called Tesla, plus a new rocket company named SpaceX that aimed to compete with NASA.7 Unlike his earlier investments, Musk held on this time. And it worked in his favor, with both companies’ valuations appreciating considerably over the years.
Today, the majority of Musk’s fortune comes from his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He also owns other companies — including X, formerly known as Twitter, Neuralink and The Boring Company — and made money from selling property and investing in cryptocurrency.8
Tesla, Inc. is an American electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by engineers including Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning—and later led to prominence by Elon Musk—Tesla designs and manufactures electric vehicles, battery energy storage systems, solar energy products, and related services. The company is best known for its popular EV models like the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y. Tesla also operates a global network of charging stations (Superchargers) and is involved in autonomous driving technology through its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software initiatives.
Elon Musk’s holdings
Elon Musk built his considerable wealth investing in and nurturing companies. His biggest, most valuable investments include the following.
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*Figures using most recent data available as of May 2025
Salary info
Elon Musk's salary:
The most recent data available shows Musk's compensation package from Tesla to be worth $101.4 billion.15
Tesla compensates its CEO with stock options when the company hits performance metrics. This has turned out to be very lucrative over the years, as his compensation reflects the overall success of everyone at Tesla.
Musk’s compensation package from Tesla was worth up to around $56 billion in 2018 and $101 billion in 2024, which are unprecedented records for a CEO. However, they were rejected by judges, who claimed the payouts were excessive, unfair to shareholders, and illustrate Musk’s unethical control of the company’s board.
Other than Tesla, the companies Musk owns and in some cases also manages are private and aren’t required to disclose salaries. He doesn’t receive a salary working for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under President Donald Trump or for his work at Tesla.16
Key milestones in career
- 1995. Musk drops out of Stanford University after two days to become an entrepreneur and cofounds Zip2.
- 1999. Zip2 sells for $307 million. During that same year, Musk cofounds X.com, an online payments company that later became PayPal.
- 2002. PayPal is sold to eBay for $1.5 billion, and SpaceX is founded.
- 2004. Musk invests in Tesla Motors and becomes the company’s chairman.
- 2008. SpaceX successfully launches the Falcon 1, the first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit.
- 2010. Tesla goes public.
- 2016. Neuralink and The Boring Company are founded.
- 2020. Tesla becomes the world’s most valuable automotive company.
- 2021. SpaceX successfully launches its first all-civilian space mission, and Musk becomes the richest person in the world.
- 2022. Musk acquires Twitter for $44 billion, and SpaceX raises $2 billion.
- 2025. Musk is appointed a senior advisor to United States President Donald Trump and the de facto head of DOGE.
Investment strategies
Musk’s various investment strategies share similar characteristics. He’s known for taking risks, hanging on through challenges and setbacks, concentrating wealth, reinvesting his profits and betting big on potentially transformative technologies.
For the companies Musk helped create, he invested in them significantly more and stood by his convictions to retain significant control over how they were managed. "I always invest my own money in the companies that I create,” Musk once famously said. “I don't believe in the whole thing of just using other people's money.”17
He’s also big on investing in technologies he believes will shape the future, such as sustainable energy, space exploration, artificial intelligence and free speech, and being picky rather than the conventional approach of putting his eggs into many different baskets. Musk doesn’t play it safe: He takes risky bets, and once he settles on something he sees it through and reinvests his profits into his businesses.
Many of Musk’s companies struggle at the outset, but he has the financial chops, patience, and skin thick enough to weather these storms and bring his ideas to fruition. “There's a tremendous bias against taking risks,” Musk once said. “Failure is an option here.”18
About Elon Musk: Personal life and history
- Age: 53
- Title: Founder, cofounder, CEO, chief designer, chief technology officer, senior advisor to the President of the United States
- Income source: Equity stakes in his companies and performance-based compensation
- Location: Texas
Elon Musk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa to Maye Musk, a Canadian-born model and dietitian, and Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer. At 17, he moved to Canada to study and completed a B.A. in economics and B.Sc. in physics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.
He then enrolled in a Ph.D in applied physics at Stanford but dropped out after two days to become an entrepreneur and create tech companies. He made his first millions during the dot-com bubble and used those funds to establish SpaceX and invest in Tesla.
While developing his reputation as a tech visionary, Musk simultaneously made headlines for his opinions and personal life. The tech mogul has 14 children, posts controversial messages on social media and has become synonymous with rapid innovation, ambitious goals and a relentless drive that often polarizes public opinion.
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Daniel Liberto is a financial journalist with over 10 years of experience covering markets, investing, and the economy. He writes for global publications and specializes in making complex financial topics clear and accessible to all readers.
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