Featured Image Credit: Marco Ravagli / Contributor / STEFANI REYNOLDS / Contributor / Getty
When it comes to the richest people on Earth, it's hard to put into context just how rich they are.
Up there with the Zuckerbergs, Bezoses, and Ellisons of the world, Elon Musk is far and away the richest man on the planet.
The tech entrepreneur might have made a dud investment in Twitter/X, but his other ventures continue to soar.
Despite fluctuating wealth, Elon Musk is well on the way to becoming the world's first trillionaire thanks to a particularly healthy 2024.
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Mr. Musk has just crossed another milestone, being the first person ever to boast a net worth of $400 billion.
According to a December 11 article from Bloomberg, Musk has hit the elusive $400 billion mark.
His $20 billion jump that put him over the line can be attributed to SpaceX investors agreeing to purchase $1.25 billion of insider shares.
With the spacefaring company now valued at $350 billion, it's the extra boost that Musk needed.
Musk has been on an upward trajectory after Donald Trump's American election win.
Although the world's richest saw a massive boost to their net worths, Musk has been enjoying the biggest.
It's no coincidence that he finds himself part of Trump's inner circle and co-head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
As well as this, Musk's interests in Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, the Boring Company, and more have seen him placed perfectly for this tech boom.
Similar to Musk's new milestone, Tesla shares have hit their own record high. Having soared by around 71% in 2024, shares in the car manufacturer climbed to $424.77 on December 11. This is a healthy increase from the pandemic peak of $409.97 on November 4, 2021.
With Musk already having $400 billion, there are questions about how much longer it'll be until he smashes past $500 billion.
To put it into context of how rich Musk is, he could give everyone on Earth $48 million and he'd still have $6.4 billion in the bank for himself.
That would obviously never happen, but even if he gave everyone estimated to be on the planet right now $1 billion, he'd still have $391.8 billion.
Assuming he stays on track to becoming a trillionaire in 2027, Musk could use $1 trillion to give half of the USA health insurance for a whole year, end homelessness in the country, or simply buy 12 million Cybertrucks.
Although the numbers are constantly going up and down, Bloomberg's Billionaire Index actually lists Musk's current net worth at $447 billion. As Jeff Bezos is currently in second place with $249 billion, it looks like Musk is sitting pretty comfortably on his mountains of money.
