Elon Musk’s current net worth in 2022 is $271.7 billion and he is ranked as the richest person in the world at fifty years old according to Forbes. He rotated between the #1 and #2 wealth ranking in the world last year as his shares in Tesla stock repeatedly hit all time highs in price then reversed. Musk’s net worth has fluctuated dramatically over the past 12 months due to the volatility in the Tesla stock price. Elon finally overtook Jeff Bezos for the #1 spot as the richest person in the world and held it in the second half of 2021.
He is one of the greatest technology entrepreneurs of all time based on equity returns in the companies he founded that created his personal net worth.
His first big entrepreneurial win was as the co-founder of Zip2, a web software company, which was acquired by Compaq for $340 million in 1999. Musk made $22 million from his 7% share of Zip2 in the acquisition sale.
With $10 million of the capital he received from that sale of Zip2 he invested it for his next big startup win as the co-founder of PayPal which was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. It was bought by eBay to integrate into their website so buyers and sellers could easily make transactions directly.
With the $180 million Musk received from selling his 11.7% stake in PayPal to eBay he then invested it all in SpaceX, Tesla, and Solar City as he believed that space travel, electric cars, and the solar power industry were the future.
“My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent.” – Elon Musk
He was very busy as the founder and CEO of SpaceX, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, Inc., and also acted as the chairman and helped start Solar City which was later acquired by Tesla.
Musk said he currently owns just one publicly traded stock, his own company Tesla. Mr. Musk owns about 17% of the company’s outstanding shares down from 22.4% a year ago.[1] Musk didn’t like selling stock, since founding Tesla he has sold shares only to cover taxes on exercised stock options. This changed in 2021 as he sold billions of dollars worth of the stock. Tesla stock gained over the past decade and dramatically increased Musk’s net worth. Tesla’s 10 year price total return is 19,021.9%. [2]
Elon Musk currently owns a 48% equity stake and has 78% voting control in SpaceX as it is valued at $50 billion after its latest funding round.[3]
Musk was a key Angel Investor that helped launch an artificial intelligence company DeepMind Technologies in 2010. The company sold to Google for a reported price of $400 to $600 million.
He is also the co-founder of Neuralink; founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of OpenAI.
Bloomberg reports that private investors value the Boring Company at about $920 million based on its funding rounds. Elon Musk owns 90% of the equity in the Boring Company.
Microsoft invested $1 billion in his company OpenAI to support the building of artificial intelligence.
Neuralink, his brain computing startup has raised $363 million in venture funding in three rounds, which sets the startup’s valuation between $500 million to $1 billion.[4]
Elon Musk’s wealth was built through the founding of innovative tech companies. Each of his companies changed what was possible through advancing technology by leaps. Elon Musk continually took his capital from his big wins and put it into bigger and more difficult business ventures. He is an entrepreneur and innovator with incredible energy and mental curiosity, it will be interesting to see how all his ventures play out over time. He is on track to be the world’s first trillionaire at his current pace.
