Elon Musk's estimated wealth soared by $45 billion to a record $722 billion on Thursday after the release of SpaceX's IPO prospectus offered fresh transparency into his personal finances.
The SpaceX and Tesla CEO's net worth jumped after the Bloomberg Billionaires Index removed a $45 billion liability tied to his SpaceX stake.
Bloomberg had assumed that 57% of Musk's SpaceX shares were pledged as collateral for personal loans, after he said in 2019 that he'd borrowed against some of them.
However, SpaceX's prospectus revealed that as of May 1, Musk had only pledged about 238,000 of his 849.5 million SpaceX shares — less than 0.3% — as "security for personal indebtedness."
The disclosure led Bloomberg to scrap the $45 billion liability, catapulting Musk's estimated wealth by that amount to a fresh high.
He's now gained an unmatched $103 billion this year, making him richer than the next two people on Bloomberg's rich list, Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, combined.
Musk's wealth has ballooned as his companies' valuations have soared.
Tesla stock has surged roughly 14-fold since the start of 2020, propelling the EV maker's market capitalization to $1.3 trillion.
SpaceX's valuation rocketed around 20-fold between the spring of 2020 and December last year. The rocket business, which acquired Musk-owned xAI in February, has targeted a valuation north of $1.5 trillion as a public company.
Musk owns about 11% of Tesla, but could double the size of his stake in the coming years if he hits the milestones in his latest pay package. He owns around 50% of SpaceX per the rocket-and-satellite company's filing this week.
The tech titan's $722 billion fortune exceeds the market value of most of the world's largest companies, including Exxon Mobil, Visa, and Intel.
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Theron Mohamed is a London-based correspondent on the Trending team at Business Insider. His coverage spans finance, investing, wealth, markets, and the economy.Theron joined BI in 2019 as a reporter at Markets Insider and rose to the rank of correspondent before moving to the Trending team in 2024. He previously covered tech, media, and telecom stocks for Investors Chronicle magazine and had a brief stint on the Financial Times' Data team. He interned at the Wall Street Journal in New York where he primarily wrote for Heard on the Street.Theron has freelanced for The Independent, The Telegraph, WIRED, and several smaller publications. He holds an undergraduate degree in geography from the London School of Economics, and a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.Theron often covers Warren Buffett, Michael Burry, Jeremy Grantham and other top-flight investors. He also writes about the world's wealthiest people and shares financial advice from all manner of rich and successful people.Email Theron at [email protected] and follow him on X @theron_mohamed.Expertise
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