Forbes declared Elon Musk as the world’s first trillionaire, as SpaceX’s stock began trading on the Nasdaq at $150 per share, giving the company a nearly $2 trillion market cap. Forbes estimates that the IPO has boosted Musk’s fortune to $1.1 trillion, as of Friday morning. His net worth rose by $188 billion to an estimated $982 billion on Thursday evening, when SpaceX priced the IPO at $135 per share.
Looking at Musk’s wealth portfolio, the SpaceX chairman, CEO and chief technical officer, owns 4.8 billion shares of SpaceX, worth $715 billion, and has another 350 million stock options worth $50 billion, giving him a 38% stake in the company.
Musk first debuted on Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires list in 2012, with an estimated $2 billion fortune, making him the 634th-richest person in the world. From there, it only took Musk just nine years to become the world’s wealthiest person for the first time in January 2021 as Tesla’s shares soared, propelling Musk past Bezos for the No. 1 spot. Read more about the history of the Forbes World’s Billionaires list and the journey to Musk becoming a trillionaire here.
“Elon Musk’s ascent to a $1 trillion fortune represents a milestone once considered unimaginable, highlighting how rapidly wealth can be created in an increasingly interconnected and technology-driven world,” said Matt Durot, Deputy Editor, Wealth at Forbes. “Forbes remains the definitive source for understanding who is creating wealth, how they are creating it, and what it means for the future of business, and today marks a new chapter in the evolution of global business and entrepreneurship.”
For over 40 years, Forbes has been the definitive authority on tracking and analyzing the wealth of the world’s richest individuals. Since launching its first World’s Billionaires List in 1987, Forbes has built an unmatched repository of data, research, and institutional expertise, creating the global benchmark for wealth measurement. Through rigorous reporting, extensive financial analysis, and a trusted methodology refined over decades, Forbes has chronicled the rise and fall of fortunes across industries, countries and generations.
“No other media brand combines the same depth of historical wealth data, editorial credibility, and global reach, making Forbes the most trusted source for understanding who holds the world’s wealth, how it was created, and how it continues to shape the global economy,” said Randall Lane, Chief Content Officer, Forbes.
In May, at the Forbes Innovator 250 Celebration, celebrating the greatest living American innovators, inventors and founders who were named to our Forbes 250 Innovators List, Randall Land hosted a virtual live conversation with the #1 innovator on the list, Elon Musk.
In an exclusive interview with Forbes, Musk made predictions about the advancement of AI and robotics in the next half-decade. “In five years, digital intelligence will exceed the sum of all human intelligence. In five years, there might be at least 100 million humanoid robots, but maybe a billion,” he said. “I predict the economy is probably twice its current size in five, maybe six, years. In five to seven years, you’re going to hit a doubling period, in plus or minus a few years, you’ll see giant changes.”
