Elon Musk officially became the world's first trillionaire after the highly anticipated Initial Public Offering (IPO) of his SpaceX company.

The IPO was the largest in history and saw the rocket and satellite company valued at a staggering $2.1 trillion (£1.56tn) shortly after launch.

Given that Musk owns roughly 46% of the shares in SpaceX, his wealth has soared as a result, and Forbes now estimates his net worth at around $1.1 trillion (£819bn).    

It marks the latest – and perhaps most impressive – milestone in the enigmatic and often controversial entrepreneur's career. 

But how did he get here?

From earning his first millions to shattering records as a centibillionaire, Musk's fortune has skyrocketed through PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla and xAI.

Click or scroll on for his major money landmarks.

All dollar values in US dollars

In 1999, at the height of the dot-com boom, 27-year-old Elon Musk shot past the million-dollar mark thanks to the sale of his first company Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million (£227m).

A city guide software platform for newspapers, the Silicon Valley firm was founded with his brother Kimbal in 1995 using $28,000 (£21k) from their father Errol.

Musk personally pocketed $22 million (£16.3m) from the deal, transforming him into a multimillionaire pretty much overnight.

Flush with cash, Musk treated himself to a McLaren F1 and wasted no time reinvesting $10 million (£7.4m) to launch online payments startup X.com, a name he would later revive for his social media venture.

In 2000, X.com merged with Confinity, then rebranded as PayPal in 2001. When eBay acquired PayPal the following year for $1.5 billion (£1.1bn), Musk walked away with $165 million (£122m), officially making him a centimillionaire.

After founding SpaceX in 2002 and joining Tesla in 2004, Musk rapidly grew his business empire and personal wealth. By 2012, SpaceX had successfully delivered its first craft to the International Space Station, while Tesla began major vehicle deliveries, which sent the electric car company's stock soaring.

That same year, Musk made his debut on the Forbes Billionaires list with an estimated net worth of $2 billion (£1.48bn), taking his place in the three-comma club and cementing his status as one of the tech world's biggest rising stars.

On 31 August 2020, Musk became the world's fifth-ever centibillionaire and fifth-richest person, following a Tesla stock split.

Incredibly, his net worth stood at just under $28 billion (£21bn) at the start of the year. The stellar growth was a testament to Tesla's exceptional stock market performance, with Musk's share of the company then standing at 20%.

In fact, by the end of the year, the tech mogul's fortune had accelerated by a whopping $140 billion (£103.5bn).

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In January 2021, Musk surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world's wealthiest individual as his fortune climbed to $190 billion (£140.5bn). Bezos reclaimed the crown the following month but lost it again in September when Musk became the third person to achieve a net worth of $200 billion (£148bn). Again, the boost was fuelled by surging Tesla stock.

Musk has largely stayed on top ever since, with Bezos making a brief return in March 2024, and the other challengers, fashion mogul Bernard Arnault and software pioneer Larry Ellison, also enjoying only fleeting claims to the title.

Musk made history in November 2021 when he became the first individual to surpass a $300 billion (£222bn) net worth. According to Forbes, his fortune reached $306 billion (£226.3bn) as Tesla's valuation attained the magic trillion-dollar mark.

Meanwhile, Musk's substantial SpaceX stake was making up an ever-bigger piece of the pie. In February 2021, the company's valuation reached $74 billion (£54.7bn) following its latest fundraising round, up from $46 billion (£34bn) in its previous funding drive in 2020.

Musk scored a global first yet again in December 2024 when his net worth sailed past $400 billion (£296.8bn). The sharp upswing in his wealth came as SpaceX scored a $350 billion (£258.8bn) valuation, with his 42% stake up 60% in value from the last tender.

This made SpaceX the most valuable private company on the planet, racing ahead of the likes of ByteDance, OpenAI, Stripe and SHEIN.

Despite a tumultuous 2025 marked by political controversy – including a four-month stint as head of the money-saving Trump administration initiative DOGE – Musk's wealth continued to surge.

According to Bloomberg, his net worth increased 45% across 2025 to around $630 billion (£468bn), making him more than twice as rich as the world's second-wealthiest person, Google co-founder Larry Page. 

The remarkable increase was largely thanks to a massive surge in SpaceX's valuation and a strong rebound in Tesla's share price as the year progressed, making him the first person to reach half-trillionaire status in the process.

Musk passed yet another wow-factor milestone in February 2026 when his net worth surged past $800 billion (£591.6bn).

This time, the planet's richest person had xAI to thank. Its most recent valuation doubled from the previous funding round to hit $250 billion (£184.9bn), in spite of a slew of controversies, including the deepfakes scandal surrounding generative AI chatbot Grok.

Musk's rapidly rising wealth has showed no signs of slowing and he officially became the world's first trillionaire in June 2026 after the SpaceX IPO mentioned at the start.

It's worth reflecting on just how quickly the second half of this milestone came about: in December 2024, his net worth stood at $400 billion (£296.8bn).

So what comes next?

Musk has numerous ambitious plans underway, including launching solar-powered data centres into orbit, creating a city on the moon and, of course, finally exploring Mars.

Time will tell what impact all these ambitious plans have on his already-unrivalled net worth.

Updated by Damian Clarkson

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