Technology
How Elon Musk’s net worth has soared over time – including ‘6x leap’ in just two years
ELON Musk on Monday splashed out $44bn on Twitter – pocket change for a man richer than most countries.
With a net worth of $270bn (£212bn), the 50-year-old’s rise to become the world’s richest man has been astronomical.
That’s fitting given that Musk is CEO of SpaceX, a California-based rocket-maker he founded in 2002.
His shares in the company – which is worth $100bn and rising – are only a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to his wealth.
Much of it is tied up in Musk’s 17 per cent stake in Tesla, which makes him its single largest individual shareholder.
Musk is CEO of the electric car maker and recent jumps in its share price have coincided with his rise up the billionaire rankings.
Tesla is currently one of the world’s ten most valuable companies and is worth a little over $1trillion.
Musk also heads up brain-tech startup Neuralink and The Boring Company, which aims to dig traffic-busting tunnel networks under cities.
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How Musk’s wealth has changed over time
Musk grew up in South Africa and then immigrated to Canada at age 17 to avoid conscription.
He landed in the U.S. as a transfer student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and economics.
He gained notoriety in Silicon Valley as the co-founder of online payments platform X.com, which later became PayPal.
When eBay snapped up PayPal for $1.5billion in 2002, Musk netted a cool $180million from the deal.
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He used the windfall to set up Tesla and SpaceX, and from there the only way has been up.
Musk first made the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012 when his net worth was listed at $2billion.
By 2020, he had risen to 35th in the rankings with his wealth valued at nearly $25billion.
From here, things started to get silly as Tesla’s stock price went meteoric during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In January 2021, Musk overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person.
At the time, he was valued at a little over $200billion – becoming only the third person to reach that mark.
Fast-forward to April 2022, and Musk’s net worth is now at a staggering $270billion.
That makes it equivalent to the annual GDP of a small-to-medium sized country, meaning Musk is richer than nations including Pakistan.
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It’s now clear how Musk’s $44bn Twitter takeover will affect his standings in the billionaire rankings.
According to reports, the billionaire’s bid includes $21bn of his own money. Much of the rest is covered by loans tied to his Tesla stock.
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