Musk makes history as the first person to reach $500 billion net worth

Shawn Knight

Shawn Knight

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What just happened? Elon Musk has recaptured the title of world's richest person after relinquishing the top spot roughly a month ago. Not only is he back at number one, he's become the first person in history with a net worth of half a trillion dollars.

According to Forbes' real-time billionaires tracker, Musk's fortune reached $500 billion on Wednesday afternoon – making him the first person ever to reach that milestone. Just last December, the tech entrepreneur became the first to reach the $400 billion net worth mark.

When Musk hit the $500 billion point, he was roughly $150 ahead of Oracle co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison. As of this writing, Musk's net worth has dipped slightly to $482.6 billion, but he's still in the lead by more than $130 billion.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg is third on the list at $246.5 billion, slightly ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with a fortune of $235.3 billion. Google co-founder Larry Page rounds out the top five with a net worth of $203.7 billion.

Musk's latest rally is directly linked to Tesla's performance. This past spring, Musk announced plans to step down from his role under President Trump to focus more on running his electric car company. Investors have responded positively as Tesla stock has nearly doubled in value since and is within striking range of its all-time high value from December 2024.

He can also credit the continued success of SpaceX, the private space company he formed in 2002, for adding to his net worth. Based on a private tender offer over the summer, SpaceX is worth at least $400 billion. Musk's stake is said to be around 42 percent.

Should Musk's ventures continue to turn a profit, he could very well become the first ever trillionaire. As Forbes highlights, Tesla's board proposed a new pay package for its CEO last month that includes additional stock valued at up to $1 trillion, contingent on the company hitting "Mars-shot" performance milestones over the next decade.

Masthead credit: Reuters

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Musk makes history as the first person to reach $500 billion net worth

 
dirtyferret said:
Thankfully billionaires pay their fair share of taxes

https://americansfortaxfairness.org...ing_wp_cron=1759518708.1511209011077880859375
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Didn’t someone do a bit on his purchase of Twitter over this?

Something along the lines of “we can’t tax unrealised gains, but Musk can absolutely use those unrealised gains to get a massive loan that will give him the money needed to buy twitter, and because it’s debt, it can’t be taxed”.

Or something to that effect anyway.
 
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redgarl said:
Inflation for the last 5 years was around 23% while he doubled his fortune.
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That's also because Tesla's performance has been great. 5 years ago, Tesla had 500k vehicle deliveries globally and nowadays it's more than triple that.
m4a4 said:
Meh, all this ever is is speculative.
Lets hear how much he has once it's all liquid cash lol
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Exactly. Basically all of his money is tied up in stock. Selling his Tesla stock would cause the value of the stock to crash well before he finishes. Afterwards he'd have to pay at least 20% in taxes (federal capital gains rate) on all the stock he sells.

It's not just about the number of shares, it's also because of the importance of keeping Musk invested in Tesla (via time and money). That's why TSLA share prices went up 25% after he invested an additional $1B, and after his CEO compensation plan was opened up for voting by shareholders.

In other words, the only reason he's worth that much is because he specifically is putting it into Tesla instead of taking it out. I'd guess his net value would drop by 90% if Elon Musk tried to exit TSLA completely. When (or if) he decides to invest significant amounts of money into bringing humanity to Mars (what he's said he'll do with his wealth), he'll have to sell very slowly.
Burty117 said:
Didn’t someone do a bit on his purchase of Twitter over this?

Something along the lines of “we can’t tax unrealised gains, but Musk can absolutely use those unrealised gains to get a massive loan that will give him the money needed to buy twitter, and because it’s debt, it can’t be taxed”.

Or something to that effect anyway.
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Debt isn't free lol. Plus the underlying collateral (stocks) will still eventually be sold and taxed to pay back said loans. Getting a loan is just beneficial for him because he believes the value of the collateral will grow faster than the interest of the loan.
 
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Plutoisaplanet said:
When (or if) he decides to invest significant amounts of money into bringing humanity to Mars (what he's said he'll do with his wealth), he'll have to sell very slowly.
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So, apart from being unpleasant generally with very questionable politics, he's going to waste his wealth on taking humanity to Mars. If the money went into taking the necessary steps to begin asteroid mining then I could see the benefit but sending humanity but Mars is a very questionable destination (or investment).
 
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Please change the tile to "First publicly acknowledged half-trillionaire". Meanwhile, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and their friends over at BlackRock and Vanguard are probably slow-clapping from behind a few layers of shell companies. Always fun watching the warm-up acts take the spotlight while the stage owners stay in the shadows.
 
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He is, as many have already stated, a gaping ******* and an utter horror of a human being.
I guess if you discard all humanity and worship nothing but money and have a desperation to be the big man then you can become incredibly wealthy, but at what cost? A trail of hatred and abuse claims from ex's, no real friends just employees, really unpleasant fiddling's with far-right political organisations, etc etc.
But if it makes you feel any better he looks deeply uncomfortable in his own skin and is probably as miserable as he deserves to be.
 
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Luay said:
Please change the tile to "First publicly acknowledged half-trillionaire". Meanwhile, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and their friends over at BlackRock and Vanguard are probably slow-clapping from behind a few layers of shell companies. Always fun watching the warm-up acts take the spotlight while the stage owners stay in the shadows.
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Spot on Elon is the public focus when the real ones' are unknown and behind the curtains, much bigger & much wealthier.
 
Burty117 said:
Didn’t someone do a bit on his purchase of Twitter over this?

Something along the lines of “we can’t tax unrealised gains, but Musk can absolutely use those unrealised gains to get a massive loan that will give him the money needed to buy twitter, and because it’s debt, it can’t be taxed”.

Or something to that effect anyway.
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...because it's debt he has to pay it back, and has to either realise some of the said unrealised gains in order to do so, or use other actual income, at which point that income or realised gain gets taxed....

Honestly, basic 1st year accounting 1001 should be mandatory in highschool, the level of financial illiteracy in society these days is astounding
 
Plutoisaplanet said:
Debt isn't free lol. Plus the underlying collateral (stocks) will still eventually be sold and taxed to pay back said loans. Getting a loan is just beneficial for him because he believes the value of the collateral will grow faster than the interest of the loan.
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Norsiiii said:
...because it's debt he has to pay it back, and has to either realise some of the said unrealised gains in order to do so, or use other actual income, at which point that income or realised gain gets taxed....

Honestly, basic 1st year accounting 1001 should be mandatory in highschool, the level of financial illiteracy in society these days is astounding
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I never said this, I never said I was any expert, I just remember a bit being spread around, turns out, 2-3 years passes insanely fast, I found it:
I just think it's funny:
"if you want to buy a thing, based on what you have, you can yes.
If we want to tax you, you can just say "I don't have it".

Also, he has a point, should you be able to use shares as collateral?
 
Burty117 said:
I never said this, I never said I was any expert, I just remember a bit being spread around, turns out, 2-3 years passes insanely fast, I found it:
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You brought it up, and people addressed it. it's not personal, don't worry.
Burty117 said:
I just think it's funny:
"if you want to buy a thing, based on what you have, you can yes.
If we want to tax you, you can just say "I don't have it".

Also, he has a point, should you be able to use shares as collateral?
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Honestly, not being able to borrow money by using stock would've benefited Elon Musk highly and harmed believers in the company significantly. TSLA was one of the most shorted companies for a long time. It made it a more affordable stock to buy, and personally I benefited from the price being kept low (since I got to buy it at low prices). Since 2020, it's long been shorted at around 3% of shares outstanding, but before that it was often 30%: https://fortune.com/2020/01/10/elon-musk-tesla-stock-short-sellers/

Anyways to explain what shorting a stock is, it allows people to get a loan off of someone else's stock. The money comes from literally selling someone else's invested money (usually if they opt in), so the person shorting can invest that money in other stocks. When they exit their short position, they must pay back whatever the borrowed stock price is (so it can be rebought). Elon Musk has long said it should be illegal and he would probably agree with you:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1354890601649610753

As for taxing unrealized gains, it would harm average people the most because their tax bracket would change from volatile markets. If a stock shot up 1 year, shareholders would be taxed from gains all at once. Normal people are likely to go up in a tax bracket whereas billionaires would just pay 20% (the max for long-term gains in the federal government). Of course there's also state taxes (which is even greater), but again billionaires are already going to be at the top tax bracket and only regular people would be affected.

When TSLA shot up in 2019, I was able to stay at the 0% federal tax bracket by selling/rebuying TSLA shares over multiple years (realizing a portion of my gains each time). Taxing unrealized gains is a very shortsighted thing to do, and Democrats who advocate for that are just appealing to the emotions of people who listen to them. It wouldn't harm poor people (who don't save) and only harm average people (who do save by investing money in the stock market).

Separately, older people who no longer have a retirement account would be highly affected by asset loans because they get reverse mortgages all the time to help them make it through the rest of life. You'd be asking them to pay taxes on top of that, and eventually their children would get an even more meager inheritance. Here's what the IRS has to say about why reverse mortgages aren't taxed: https://www.irs.gov/faqs/other/for-senior-taxpayers/for-senior-taxpayers
 
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