Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has become the first person to achieve a net worth exceeding $500 billion, according to Forbes. His fortune has been fueled by Tesla's soaring valuation and SpaceX's planned public offering, which could push his wealth to nearly $1 trillion.
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk showed early entrepreneurial flair, selling homemade chocolates and coding video games as a child. After leaving South Africa for Canada and then the US, he studied at the University of Pennsylvania before dropping out of Stanford to launch two tech startups during the dot-com boom. One of those ventures, an online bank that later became PayPal, was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
Musk plowed that fortune into SpaceX, a rocket company aimed at reducing space travel costs, and Tesla, an electric car manufacturer. Both companies have disrupted their industries, despite frequent brushes with bankruptcy. In 2022, he acquired Twitter for $44 billion, renaming it X, though the platform's value has since plummeted. His holdings also include xAI, an artificial intelligence venture, and other smaller firms.
Beyond business, Musk is a polarizing figure, known for his controversial political statements and legal battles. He has been open about his challenges with Asperger's Syndrome and his difficult childhood, which included bullying and his parents' divorce. Critics and admirers alike describe him as ambitious, confrontational, and driven by instinct.
In October 2025, Musk's net worth topped $500 billion, and it has since risen to an estimated $726 billion, far ahead of other tech billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. A Tesla pay deal worth up to $1 trillion, approved by shareholders in 2025, could add to his fortunes if ambitious targets are met.