Musk made $175.8 million when PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002. He was first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, with a net worth of $2 billion.
| Name | Elon Musk |
| Net worth | $187 billion ( Estimated) |
| Net worth in indian rupeee | 18700 Crores |
| Age | 51 years |
| Date of birth | June 28, 1971 |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 5’ 11” |
| Profession | Entrepreneur, Investor |
| Nationality | American |
At the start of 2020, Musk had a net worth of $27 billion. By the end of the year his net worth had increased by $150 billion, mostly driven by his ownership of around 20% of Tesla stock. During this period, Musk’s net worth was often volatile. For example, it dropped $16.3 billion in September, the largest single-day plunge in Bloomberg Billionaires Index’s history. In November of that year, Musk passed Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world; a week later he passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second-richest.
In January 2021, Musk, with a net worth of $185 billion, surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world. Bezos reclaimed the top spot the following month. On September 27, 2021, after Tesla stock surged, Forbes announced that Musk had a net worth of over $200 billion, and was the richest person in the world. In November 2021, Musk became the first person worth over $300 billion.
On December 30, 2022, it was reported that Musk had lost $200 billion from his net worth due to declining stock values in Tesla, becoming the first person in history to lose such a large sum of money. In January 2023, Musk was recognised by Guinness World Records for experiencing the “largest loss of personal fortune in history” with regards to his financial losses since November 2021, which Guinness quoted a Forbes estimate of $182 billion.
Elon Musk sources of wealth
Around 75% of Musk’s wealth derived from Tesla stock in November 2020, a proportion that fell to about 37% as of December 2022, after selling nearly $40 billion in company shares since late 2021. Musk does not receive a salary from Tesla; he agreed with the board in 2018 to a compensation plan that ties his personal earnings to Tesla’s valuation and revenue. The deal stipulated that Musk only receives the compensation if Tesla reaches certain market values. It was the largest such deal ever done between a CEO and a company board. In the first award, given in May 2020, he was eligible to purchase 1.69 million Tesla shares (about 1% of the company) at below-market prices, which was worth about $800 million.
Musk paid $455 million in taxes on $1.52 billion of income between 2014 and 2018. According to ProPublica, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018. He claimed his 2021 tax bill was estimated at $12 billion based on his sale of $14 billion worth of Tesla stock.
Musk has repeatedly described himself as “cash poor”, and has “professed to have little interest in the material trappings of wealth”. In May 2020, he pledged to sell almost all physical possessions. Musk has defended his wealth by saying he is accumulating resources for humanity’s outward expansion to space.