Tesla CEO Elon Musk, on Wednesday, became the first person ever to achieve a net worth of nearly $500 billion, according to Forbes Real Time Billionaires.
The record was propelled by Tesla stock gains and surging valuations of his startups, including SpaceX and xAI.
Musk is now half-way to becoming the first ever trillionaire.
In December, he became the first person ever worth $400 billion and is $150 billion ahead of Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
Tesla shares climbed by nearly 4% on Wednesday, adding an estimated $9.3 billion to Musk’s fortune. The EV maker’s stock price has nearly doubled since Musk announced in April that he would be stepping back from his role as head of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency.
With Tesla’s market cap back within 10% of the all-time high it hit in December, Musk’s 12% stake in the company is now worth $191 billion, Forbes said.
The Tesla board last month proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan for Musk that could give him additional stock worth up to $1 trillion if Tesla achieves record-breaking performance milestones like growing its market cap more than eightfold over the 10-year life of the award.
In July SpaceX was in talks to raise money and sell insider shares in a deal valuing the firm at around $400 billion, Bloomberg News reported.
In August 2020, Musk became the fifth person ever worth $100 billion. He became the world’s richest person for the first time in January 2021, with a nearly $190 billion net worth. Then, in September 2021, he was the third person ever worth $200 billion, after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Frenchman Bernard Arnault of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH. Musk hit $300 billion in November 2021 and $400 billion in December 2024.