As of 8/31/16, the Elon Musk net worth total of $11.6 billion has dropped based on the Tesla and Solar City stock slide. The tables below show how the total has built since 1999. Between SpaceX, Tesla, Solar City, PayPal and Zip2, Musk has made some brilliant business moves. Today, SpaceX is worth $10 billion, Tesla $27 billion and SolarCity $2.5 billion. A 27% stake in each company gives the full Elon Musk net worth total of $11.6 billion. For full details like Musk’s $1 SpaceX salary, see the charts and graphs below. Note that the figures in this article are updated weekly to reflect current business valuations. The Elon Musk net worth number can fluctuate by as much as $2 billion in a single day because of stock price changes.
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Elon Musk Net Worth Facts
Elon Musk net worth | $11,058,628,835 |
|---|---|
| Elon Musk net worth vs Bill Gates net worth | 1/6th as big |
| Elon Musk net worth vs Mark Zuckerberg net worth | 1/3 as big |
| Elon Musk net worth vs Hillary Clinton net worth | 372 times bigger |
| Elon Musk net worth world rank | #72 |
| Elon Musk net worth vs typical American family net worth | 188,203 times bigger |
| Elon Musk net worth vs P. Diddy net worth | 13 times bigger |
| Elon Musk net worth vs Taylor Swift net worth | 42 times bigger |
| Elon Musk net worth vs Oprah Winfrey net worth | 4 times bigger |
| Elon Musk net worth vs Barack Obama net worth | 4,000 times bigger |
| Elon Musk Salary | $1 |
Elon Musk’s net worth is 1/6th as big as Bill Gates’ net worth of $80 billion. It’s 1/3rd the size of Mark Zuckerberg’s $36 billion and 42 times bigger than Taylor Swift‘s $309 million. Oprah Winfrey has just 1/4th as much as the Elon Musk net worth number with $3 billion, while Musk has 4,000 times as much money as U.S. President Barack Obama‘s $3.2 million. Musk is #72 in the world as far as wealth is concerned. Finally, Elon Musk’s net worth is 188,000 times the size of the typical American family’s savings of just $68,000.
Elon Musk Net Worth Timeline
The Elon Musk net worth total has grown exponentially over time. The jumps in the data below follow Musk’s innovations. For example, Musk made his first millions with the sale of Zip2, an online directory service. The business was bought by Compaq back in 1999. Musk used that money to start the company that eventually became PayPal. He made $165 million when that company sold to eBay. Musk then used that money to start SpaceX and Tesla in 2002 and 2003. He has grown those businesses into the billions each, along with green energy firm SolarCity, founded in 2006.
Elon Musk Net Worth Timeline | |
|---|---|
| Elon Musk net worth 2006 | $500,000,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2007 | $650,000,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2008 | $800,000,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2009 | $1,000,000,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2010 | $1,214,220,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2011 | $1,668,872,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2012 | $2,371,417,000 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2013 | $3,578,218,791 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2014 | $9,169,693,569 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2015 | $11,603,301,526 |
| Elon Musk net worth 2016 | $11,058,628,835 |
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Elon Musk Net Worth Breakdown
How did the Elon Musk net worth pile stack up over time? The table below shows the growth of Musk’s fortune by year and company. The figures for Zip2 and PayPal are exact, as are the numbers for Tesla and SolarCity. SpaceX numbers are based on media reports for 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016. SpaceX figures for other years are estimates. Note that Musk earned a salary of $78 million in $2012 and $70 million in 2013. Those Elon Musk salary figures are based on public reports, since Tesla is a publicly traded company. However, Musk’s Tesla salary in all other years was just $1 a year. The first $65 million in 2002 came from sales of Musk’s two companies, Zip2 and PayPal.
Year | SpaceX (32% of Elon Musk net worth) | Tesla (65% of Elon Musk net worth) | Solar City (4% of Elon Musk net worth) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | $65,000,000 | |||
| 2003 | $100,000,000 | $100,000,000 | ||
| 2004 | $150,000,000 | $100,000,000 | $250,000,000 | |
| 2005 | $200,000,000 | $150,000,000 | $350,000,000 | |
| 2006 | $300,000,000 | $200,000,000 | $500,000,000 | |
| 2007 | $350,000,000 | $300,000,000 | $650,000,000 | |
| 2008 | $400,000,000 | $400,000,000 | $800,000,000 | |
| 2009 | $500,000,000 | $500,000,000 | $1,000,000,000 | |
| 2010 | $600,000,000 | $614,220,000 | $1,214,220,000 | |
| 2011 | $672,000,000 | $996,872,000 | $1,668,872,000 | |
| 2012 | $1,344,000,000 | $949,217,000 | $2,371,417,000 | |
| 2013 | $2,072,000,000 | $1,214,320,000 | $221,909,791 | $3,578,218,791 |
| 2014 | $2,800,000,000 | $5,143,916,000 | $1,225,777,569 | $9,169,693,569 |
| 2015 | $3,282,000,000 | $7,295,098,000 | $1,026,203,526 | $11,603,301,526 |
| 2016 | $3,764,000,000 | $6,863,424,814 | $431,204,021 | $11,058,628,835 |
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Elon Musk Salary: $1 a Year
Is Elon Musk’s salary really just $1 a year? Yes, at least from Tesla. Musk did take a salary of $78 million in 2012 from the green auto giant, and another paycheck of $70 million in 2013. However, in all other years since Musk founded Tesla back in 2003, he only took a $1 salary for his work as CEO. That doesn’t stop Tesla from contributing to the Elon Musk net worth fortune. Every time a new innovation or sales coup ups the stock price, Musk’s net worth goes up.
Taking a dollar a year as an executive salary isn’t a new idea. The concept was first popularized during World War I, when wealthy corporate and government leaders volunteered their time to help the war effort. The U.S. Government prohibits work without at least some amount of pay, so the officials accepted a dollar a year. The practice was revived during both World War II and the Korean War. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mitt Romney and Michael Bloomberg have also worked for a dollar a year.
Musk has said he sees it as his mission to cut the risk of human extinction. SolarCity and Tesla attempt to move us toward this goal by fighting global warming through green energy solutions. SpaceX fits in by making the human race a “multiplanetary” species. It’s quite possible Musk sees his work as every bit as important as fighting a world war. In that light, his dollar a year salary seems to fit right in.
Elon Musk Net Worth in the Future
The Elon Musk net worth story will almost certainly continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Musk’s businesses SpaceX and Tesla continue to gain ground. SpaceX is worth $10 billion and it isn’t going anywhere but up with innovations like reusable rockets. Tesla is worth $30.1 billion and will only grow with breakthroughs like the more affordable Model 3. SolarCity took a big valuation hit recently, cutting its value nearly in half. That said, two new Musk ventures are on the horizon: the Hyperloop and OpenAI. The Hyperloop, if completed, could travel around 760 MPH. That’s faster than a passenger jet. OpenAI is an open source artificial intelligence project aimed at making sure AI doesn’t become the sole property of large corporations.
OpenAI is a nonprofit and it’s not clear yet how much money Musk will make from the Hyperloop. The one thing that’s certain is that if the past is any key to what the future holds, new Musk projects like these and others that have yet to be announced will only grow the Elon Musk net worth sum.
How Accurate Are Our Elon Musk Net Worth Numbers?
The Elon Musk net worth data in this article are fairly solid. They’re built on three things: The valuation of SpaceX, the valuation of Tesla and the valuation of Solar City. Both Tesla and Solar City are publicly traded companies, which means their valuation is readily available as just stock price vs number of shares. Since we know the number of shares Musk owns in each of those two companies, we can calculate his dollar stake in those businesses fairly easily. The trickier proposition is SpaceX. Since it’s not publicly traded, the way it fits into the Elon Musk net worth number must be figured by relying on third-party valuations. What our numbers don’t include is any money Musk keeps personally. Musk doesn’t make that public, but a savings of even $200 million wouldn’t be a huge percentage of a fortune that’s already upwards of $10 billion.
Elon Musk Net Worth in the News
The Elon Musk net worth amount got a big boost on 4/3/16. That’s when the news came out that the Tesla Model 3 had sold $10.6 billion in pre-orders in the first 36 hours of sales. When that news came out, Tesla’s stock jumped by $6 a share. That boosted the value of the company by over $762 million overnight. Since Musk owns 27.7% of the company, it also raised his net worth by $212 million.
Is the $212 million dollar one-day net worth jump deserved? If consumer preferences are any indication, yes. The Tesla Model 3 is an affordable electric car. The average price point is $42,000, with a base price as low as $35,000. There certainly does seem to be demand for the electric car. So far it has sold over 252,000 pre orders. That’s pretty much unprecedented for a car that won’t even hit production until 2017. Innovations like this do seem to justify a high Elon Musk net worth.
Whether or not Musk’s net worth stays high depends heavily on whether Tesla delivers on the Model 3. Production problems and delays could sink the company’s stock price again. To increase the chances of success, Tesla has expanded their Fremont plant. In reality, the extra $10 billion in sales dollars hasn’t been collected yet. Each pre-order cost just $1,000. That’s still $252 million collected. As we’ve seen, the real boost didn’t come from the actual money in terms of pre-order dollars. It came from the increased value of Tesla’s price per share.
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Real time stock data