Featured Image Credit: Theo Wargo / Staff / Getty
Elon Musk has been the richest man in the world for some time now, but in recent months his net worth has ballooned beyond expectations, making it a real possibility that he hits trillionaire status sooner rather than later.
Just five years ago, despite the success of Tesla and SpaceX, controversial billionaire Elon Musk was worth ‘only’ $24.6 billion, yet in the years since he has established himself as the man to beat when it comes to individual wealth.
There was a brief moment last year when Larry Ellison’s brief success saw him overtake Musk, but that lasted for a matter of days before the tech mogul reasserted his dominance — and the gap has only grown since then.
According to real-time data from Forbes, Musk’s current net worth sits at a staggering figure of $845 billion: nearly two and a half times greater than his 2025 end total, and more than the next three richest people on the list combined.
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This is primarily down to growth experienced by both Tesla and SpaceX – the latter of which recently had a new price valuation – with Musk holding 15.73% and roughly 43% of each company respectively.
Musk’s ownership of artificial intelligence company xAI is also playing a key role in his growing wealth, as Grok continues to expand, picking up key government contracts in the process.
While $845 billion is more money than anyone has ever had in history, all eyes are firmly fixed on that trillion dollar mark, with many speculating how long it’ll take before it’s reached.
ChatGPT has offered its own bold prediction for this, estimating that it could be as early as this year which certainly isn’t hard to believe considering the rate Musk’s wealth has grown in recent months.
It offered a 75% chance that he’ll become the world’s first trillionaire this year, with 2027 given as a more conservative estimate.
It very much depends on the continued market success of Tesla and SpaceX though, and issues with this – especially in relation to the wild payment plan approved by Tesla’s shareholders – could push the target into the 2030s.
One thing that many haven’t considered, however, is the reality of translating this net worth into liquid cash, as Musk recently revealed exactly how much he actually has in the bank.
The Tesla CEO proclaimed on X that only ‘0.1%’ of his $845 billion net worth is cash that he can spend, noting that his “‘net worth’ is almost entirely due to my ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.”
That does still leave him with a healthy bank though, as while 0.1% seems small, it works out to $85 billion — more than pretty much everyone apart from a select few people will ever earn in a lifetime.
