THE RICHEST MAN

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BBC and Getty Images Treated image of tech boss Elon Musk, against a backdrop of lines on a share graph.

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire on Friday, following the record-breaking stock market debut of his company SpaceX.

  1. estimated net worth of about $1.11tn, according to Bloomberg, Musk sits well above wealthy billionaires topping rich Lists Including Google Co Founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, a boss of French luxury goods group LVMH, Bernard Arnault lists, including Google co-founder estimated.
  2. Musk – who first made waves in the tech industry in the late 1990s – hasn’t always topped the rich list though.
  3. In January 2020, he was only the 35th richest person in the world, with a fortune of around $28bn.
  • But his wealth took off that year as the value of his two biggest companies – electric carmaker Tesla and space exploration and AI firm SpaceX – began to grow sharply. Musk holds large stakes in both businesses.

The long-scroll chart below traces this volatile journey over the last six years. His wealth trajectory mimics a jagged mountain range, with dramatic surges and steep declines driven by swings in Tesla’s share price, the rising value of SpaceX, and shifts in political and investor sentiment during his time in the Trump administration.

A long vertical line chart traces Elon Musk's wealth over the last six years, comparing it with that of Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault. It shows how Musk's net worth increased from $28bn in January 2020 to $1tn today. Key events are marked: Jan 2021, Musk briefly overtakes Bezos as the world's richest man for the first time; Nov 2021, Tesla stock surges and Musk's wealth reaches $340bn; In 2022 Musk buys Twitter - his net worth in October of that year is $204bn, falling to $124bn in January 2023. In June 2024 Nasa awards SpaceX $843m to deorbit the ISS; Musk is appointed to Trump's second government in January 2025 but leaves in May. In December his wealth surges to $638bn on reports that SpaceX will go public. In June 2026 the IPO launches, taking Musk's net worth to $1.11tn.

By January 2021, the tech mogul had risen to become the world’s richest person, briefly overtaking Jeff Bezos.

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