- Elon Musk is a businessman
- Musk is best known for being the CEO of Tesla, Space X and buying the social media site X
- But what is his net worth?
Elon Musk is one of the most famous people in the world and has a considerable net worth. Musk, 53, is known for being the CEO of Tesla, the founder of SpaceX, and the owner of the social media site X.
To say the least, Musk is controversial. His move to buy X (formerly known as Twitter) was unpopular, and so were the changes he made to it. The businessman enabled paid subscriptions for any user to become verified and allowed NSFW content, which has become rampant on the site ever since.
Read more: Elon Musk talks Mars colonisation
However, he still has an army of fans who admire his business practices and his outspoken views on the platform. Musk is a firm supporter of President Donald Trump, so he is popular with Republicans.
But we are not here to talk politics. Here we are to find out how Musk built his immense net worth and what he spends his vast fortune on.
Elon Musk: What is he worth?
Early life
Elon Reeve Musk was born on 28 June 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was born to Maye Musk, a dietitian, and Errol Musk, an electromagnetic engineer among other things.
Musk is of Pennsylvanian Dutch and British ancestry. His grandfather was a far-right man, known to write conspiracy theories and support anti-Jewish views. He has two siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister, and four half-siblings.
Musk was raised in the Anglican Church and grew up wealthy because of his parents’ jobs. When his parents divorced, Musk went to live with his father, which he later regretted, leading them to become estranged.
The young Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. In school, he was not the best student, and he applied for a Canadian passport since his mother was to avoid South Africa’s compulsory military service.
For context, military service would mean he’d have to participate in the apartheid regime, which he and his family were strongly against. Later, he went to multiple universities until he received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in physics. He also received a Bachelor’s degree in physics from the Wharton School.
In 1994, he had two internships, one at energy storage start-up Pinnacle Research and another at Rocket Science Games. After that, he got into Stanford in a graduate programme, but did not go.
Career of Elon Musk
Musk started his entrepreneurial career in the mid-1990s after finishing his education. He co-founded Zip 2 along with his brother, Kimbal, a web software company. Four years later, he sold it to Compaq for $307 million, and he received $22 million for his share.
That same year, in 1999, he founded X.com, an online payments company. Because of inexperience, Musk was replaced as CEO. X.com merged with online bank Confinity to stop competition. Confinity later funded its money transfer service, which became known as the billion-dollar company PayPal. Later, Musk purchased the domain name X.com for X/Twitter.
In 2002, Musk moved on to founding SpaceX, a company made to reduce space transportation costs and build affordable rockets. The company had a few failed rocket launches, but had its successful Falcon 1 rocket launch in 2008.
Following the successful launch of SpaceX, Musk joined Tesla Motors in 2004 as chairman and became CEO in 2008. Under Musk, Tesla has focused on producing high-quality electric vehicles, including the Model S, Model 3, and the ugly-looking Cybertruck.
The businessman continued building his empire. In 2016, he founded The Boring Company, a company to explore tunnel-based transportation. In the same year, he founded Neuralink to develop brain-machine interfaces.
Tesla became the most valuable automaker under Musk, and his biggest career move was in 2022 when he acquired Twitter, now X, for $44 billion.
Politics
As well as being an entrepreneur, Musk has shown a strong interest in politics. He was not officially affiliated with any party at first, with rumors saying he donated to both major American political parties. However, he has been more outspoken about supporting the Republican Party in the last few years.
The 53-year-old has supported Republican and what would be considered ‘far-right views’. In early 2024 he became vocal about supporting Donald Trump in his presidential election and endorsed him for president in July 2024.
At the second inauguration of Trump, Musk was accused of doing an anti-Jewish salute on TV, which garnered attention. However, he denied this. Later in 2025 Musk became a senior adviser to Trump.
What is Elon Musk’s net worth?
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Elon Musk has a net worth of $294 billion. His net worth has fluctuated due to a few factors, but he is the richest person in the world, according to reports.
What are his earnings?
With so many companies and income sources, it is hard to break down the earnings of Musk, but we will try!
Also, according to Celebrity Net Worth, most of Musk’s earnings come from his 13% equity stake in Tesla. In earnings, this adds up to $412 million in shares. However, he sold $40 billion worth of shares in the company to purchase X.
Additionally, the SpaceX founder owns multiple companies with huge shares in them. We can imagine from X, which has supposedly decreased in value since he bought it, he’d earn less, but his exact earnings are hard to calculate.
Real estate
His real estate holdings used to total an eye-watering $100 million. In Hillsborough, California, Musk owns a villa which he bought for $23 million in 2017. Musk sold it for $40 million in 2021.
He also had a home near LA in the style of a French chateau that he sold for $29 million.
Additionally, the X owner had another house, once owned by actor Gene Wilde,r that he sold for $7 million. He also had another four properties in the LA region of Bel Air. On Zillow, the star listed the properties for $62.5 million, according to Architectural Digest.
Later, he moved into a weird tiny home in Texas in the same location where the SpaceX headquarters is. Again, he claimed to be renting a small ranch home in the same area in Texas for $50,000 a month.
Late last year, reports said that Musk purchased a few properties in Austin, Texas, for the price of $35 million. This was allegedly to create a family compound home for Musk and his thousands of children, but he denied this.
Endorsements and sponsorships
Musk has donated money to various initiatives. In 2023 he donated $137 million to establish a new K-12 school and a future university in Austin, Texas. For his children, he also founded the Ad Astra school for them and Space X employees’ children.
He has donated $55 million to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and $1 million to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).
As well as that, he donated $20 million to schools in Texas and $10 million to help revitalize the downtown area of Brownsville in the state.
But his biggest donation was donating almost $2 billion in Tesla shares in 2022 to various charitable causes.
And there you have it, Elon Musk’s net worth, career, earnings, and his financial background summarized!
