Tech mogul Elon Musk became the first person to achieve a net worth of $500 billion Wednesday, briefly touching the half-trillion-dollar milestone before dipping back down, according to Forbes.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO crossed the $500 billion mark Wednesday afternoon on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires tracker. As of Thursday morning, he sat at $499.1 billion.
Musk is nearly $150 billion richer than his closest peer, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Ellison briefly overtook Musk as the world’s richest man earlier this month, as his cloud company saw its stock soar on strong quarterly results.
Musk’s wealth is closely tied to Tesla’s performance, both of which fluctuated significantly over the past year. His net worth soared in late last 2024, as the electric vehicle maker’s stock rose on the assumption that his companies would benefit from Musk’s close relationship with then-President-elect Trump.
However, Tesla’s value tumbled when Musk took on the highly controversial role leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), bringing his net worth down with it. Both have recovered since the billionaire left the White House and returned his attention to his companies.
After several quarters of weak sales, Tesla saw a bump in the third quarter, with deliveries up 7.4 percent from last year, according to new data released Thursday. The company delivered 497,099 vehicles in the three-month period from July to September.
The EV maker could eventually turn Musk into the world’s first trillionaire. Tesla has put forward a new pay package for its CEO that would grant him about 423 million shares if the company meets a series of milestones over the next decade. If those goals are met, the shares would be worth about $1 trillion.
Tesla shareholders are set to vote on the pay package in November. It comes as Musk’s 2018 pay package remains tied up in court, after a Delaware judge ruled it wasn’t negotiated fairly.
