Elon Musk (born June 28, 1971, Pretoria, South Africa) is a South African-born American entrepreneur, the wealthiest person in the world, and, since June 2026, the first person with a net worth above $1 trillion. He co-founded Zip2 and X.com, which merged with Confinity to form 📝PayPal, and founded 📝SpaceX, 📝Neuralink, 📝The Boring Company, and 📝xAI. He became a major early funder and later CEO of 📝Tesla Motors. In 2022 he acquired Twitter, rebranding it as 📝X (Twitter) in 2023. In 2025 he served as Senior Advisor to U.S. President 📝Donald Trump and de facto head of the 📝Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stepping down after four months in May 2025.
Since 2026 most of his companies sit under one roof: SpaceX acquired xAI, and with it X, in February 2026, went public in June in the largest IPO in history, and bought 📝Cursor in August. That consolidation, and SpaceX's post-IPO valuation of roughly $2 trillion, is what pushed his fortune past $1 trillion.
Key Companies
- Tesla — CEO; EV manufacturer; ~$1.14T market cap as of April 2026; Musk holds ~13% equity plus a restored $115B options package (304M options at $23.33 strike, Delaware Supreme Court reversed voiding in Dec 2025). Revenue ~$95B in 2025.
- SpaceX — founder, CEO, and chief engineer; reusable rockets, Dragon, and Starship, which reached orbit for the first time on September 28, 2026. Listed on 📝Nasdaq as SPCX on June 12, 2026; Musk holds about 42%. Contracted for the 📝NASA Artemis Moon lander.
- 📝Starlink — SpaceX's satellite internet network, with about 10,400 satellites and more than 12 million subscribers as of June 2026.
- xAI — AI company behind 📝Grok, founded 2023; acquired by SpaceX on February 2, 2026 at a $250B valuation (combined entity $1.25T) and rebranded SpaceXAI in July 2026.
- X — acquired 2022 and rebranded 2023; merged into xAI in March 2025, and part of SpaceX since February 2026.
- Cursor — AI code editor; acquired by SpaceX for $60B, closing August 14, 2026.
- Neuralink — neurotechnology; co-founded 2016.
- The Boring Company — tunneling; founded 2017.
Net Worth
Musk became the first trillionaire on June 12, 2026, when SpaceX's IPO lifted his net worth to about $1.11 trillion, and Forbes put it near $1.45 trillion at the peak of post-IPO trading on June 16. As of September 21, 2026, estimates were about $942 billion (Bloomberg Billionaires Index) and $955 billion (Forbes), with his wealth tied mainly to his roughly 42% stake in SpaceX and his Tesla holdings. Earlier milestones: $400B (Dec 2024), $500B (Oct 2025), $600B (mid-Dec 2025), and $809B (Forbes, April 2026). Sources: Bloomberg, CNBC.