Saturday, June 13, 2026, 11:38 a.m
Elon Musk is never far from the headlines and now the Tesla and
According to Forbes, the 54-year-old’s net worth was estimated at $982.6 billion (£733 billion) before the IPO and has grown to more than $1 trillion after the record-breaking initial public offering (IPO).
His fortune has been boosted by the sky-high valuation of his rocket and artificial intelligence (AI) company SpaceX, in which he owns a total of 38 percent shares, worth $688 billion (£514 billion) at the original IPO price, even before shares soared at the opening.
There are also his shares in Tesla, the social media platform X – formerly known as Twitter – and smaller shares in his brain interface startup Neuralink and his tunnel construction company Boring Company.
That means he has eclipsed many of his tech peers, with the combined wealth of Forbes’ top billionaires – Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Oracle chairman Larry Ellison – worth a combined $1.04 trillion (£770 billion).
However, his vast personal wealth comes at a time when he has once again caused controversy on British shores.
In a series of social media posts, Musk joined far-right activist Tommy Robinson in calling on people to take to the streets in response to the knife attack in Belfast this month.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer vowed to “take action against anyone who fuels this division” amid criticism of Musk and social media’s role in inciting violence.
It’s not the first time he’s waded into British politics and contentious British issues, or indeed picked battles with politicians – and others – around the world.
However, according to XTB’s Kathleen Brooks, it is its “cult-like status” that has appealed to the SpaceX float among retail investors, with the company offering an unusually high proportion of shares in its offering to retail investors alongside large institutional players – estimated to be around 20 to 25 percent.
SpaceX is setting some ambitious goals – from colonizing Mars to deploying AI data centers in space – and many want to join Musk’s vision.
As founder, chairman and CEO of SpaceX, Musk will have an unusual amount of influence over the now publicly traded company.
Not only does he own a significant portion of Class A shares, but he also owns more than 90 percent of so-called Class B shares, which give the holder 10 votes for each share held.
This gives him significant majority control over the company’s voting rights after the IPO and is likely to mean he is virtually immune from being fired unless he agrees.
Musk’s beginnings
SpaceX’s success is the latest in a series of successful ventures.
Musk was born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa. His engineer father, Errol, was once a partner in an emerald mine in Zambia.
Aside from his not-so-humble beginnings, the technology pioneer showed an early flair for working with computers and designed his own video game at the age of 12.
Along with his brother Kimbal, Musk launched his first entrepreneurial foray by founding an online business directory called Zip2 in the mid-1990s.
The brothers sold Zip2 to computer maker Compaq in 1999 for $307m (£229m), netting Musk a whopping $22m (£16.4m).
He quickly invested his Zip2 money in an online banking startup called X.com, which merged with payments company Confinity in 2000, creating a company that later became PayPal.
Despite a checkered tenure at the company that ended with his dismissal as chief executive, Musk made a fortune of $180 million (£134 million) when PayPal was later sold to eBay.
Rich in money, Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 and just a year later invested six million dollars (£4.5 million) in the then young car company Tesla.
He bought Twitter in 2022 for $44bn (£32.8bn) before renaming it X, marking one of his most controversial investments to date.
Press Association.
PakarPBN
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