Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire, entering a wealth bracket that no individual has ever reached before after SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offering (IPO) boosted the value of his sprawling business empire.
According to Reuters calculations based on company filings and Forbes estimates, Musk's net worth is expected to cross $1.1 trillion when SpaceX starts trading, with the rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company becoming the biggest contributor to his fortune.
The milestone places Musk in a financial league of his own. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, before the SpaceX IPO, Musk was already the world's richest person with a fortune of about $971 billion. The person behind him, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page, had a net worth of around $304 billion, meaning Musk was already more than three times richer than his closest rival.
Musk's wealth is now larger than the annual economic output of several countries. As per International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates, Taiwan's economy is worth about $976.7 billion, meaning the Tesla and SpaceX chief is now richer than an entire economy that has become a global centre for artificial intelligence chips and semiconductor manufacturing.
His fortune is also equal to around one-fourth of India's GDP, which stands at about $4.15 trillion according to IMF estimates.
The biggest jump in Musk's wealth came from SpaceX's record $75 billion IPO, which Reuters reported was the largest IPO in history.
Before the share sale, Forbes estimated Musk's fortune at around $780 billion. His stake in SpaceX is now worth about $866 billion, making it the single largest source of his wealth.
Together with his holdings in Tesla and his other ventures, Musk's wealth is expected to exceed $1.1 trillion.
"The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth tomorrow," Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth, told Reuters.
"And only one other person, (Oracle founder) Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion," he added.
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971 to a Canadian mother and South African father, Musk studied at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1997.
Over the next three decades, he built a network of companies that transformed him from a technology entrepreneur into one of the world's most powerful business figures.
Musk became a global name through Tesla and SpaceX. At Tesla, which he joined in 2008 as CEO, he pushed electric vehicles from a niche idea into a mainstream technology, forcing traditional carmakers to accelerate their own EV plans.
"He renewed the world's respect for American ingenuity in automotive engineering," Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of General Motors, told Reuters.
Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has also co-founded several companies, including brain-implant startup Neuralink and underground transport company The Boring Company. His $44 billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter in 2022, later renamed X, also expanded his influence beyond technology and business.
Musk's extraordinary wealth reflects what many investors call the "Elon premium" — the belief that his personal vision and ability to build disruptive businesses deserve a valuation beyond conventional financial measures.
SpaceX's valuation has become the latest example of that phenomenon.
"Much like Tesla, SpaceX is a bet on Elon Musk," Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs, told Reuters.
"A market cap of $1.5 trillion-$2 trillion would certainly throw all traditional valuation methodologies out the window, and is instead best characterised as the 'Elon Musk premium'," Kennedy said.
Musk's rise to the trillion-dollar mark comes at a time when debates around wealth inequality and the growing power of billionaire entrepreneurs continue across the world.
While his supporters see him as a visionary entrepreneur willing to take risks that others avoid, critics have raised concerns about the scale of influence he wields through his businesses and public presence.
Regardless of the debate, the numbers tell the story: no individual in modern history has accumulated a fortune on this scale.
From a South African-born entrepreneur who built online businesses in the 1990s to a trillionaire whose wealth exceeds the GDP of countries, Musk has created a financial milestone unlike anything the world has seen before.
Source: India Today