Elon Musk's Net Worth in 2021

Elon Musk is an entrepreneur, business tycoon, and inventor most well-known for being the CEO of Tesla. In this piece, we'll be looking at Elon Musk's net worth in 2021.

Elon Musk's Net Worth in 2021 (estimate): $278 billion

Elon Musk's net worth in 2021 amounts to $278 billion, making him the richest person in the world This number is according to numerous reputable outlets, including Forbes.

Elon Reeve Musk is a Canadian-American born in South Africa to a Canadian mother and a South African father. He'd finish his college education at the University of Pennsylvania after transferring from Queen's University, all while holding two internship positions in Silicon Valley. He was accepted at Stanford University for a Ph.D. program in materials science but decided to drop out to launch his first company, software startup Zip2.

Musk launched Zip2 in 1995 with his brother Kimbal and friend Greg Kouri, along with the help of some angel investors. The company eventually became successful after some difficulties.

After Zip2 came Musk's first ventures into digital finance. He co-founded financial services company X.com, wherein he was initially ousted from the CEO position. However, a year later, X.com underwent a merger with online bank Cofinity, an online bank most well-known for their money-transfer service, PayPal. Musk would return as CEO in the merged company, although he would get ousted once again. Nevertheless, through eBay's acquisition of PayPal, Musk would receive $100 million as the company's largest shareholder.

With this money, Musk would found the now-famous aerospace manufacturing company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., more commonly known as SpaceX. Through SpaceX, Musk wanted to build affordable rockets in pursuit of his goal of getting humans to Mars. He has been SpaceX's CEO and Chief Engineer ever since it was founded in 2002.

SpaceX's Falcon 1 became the very first privately-developed fully liquid-fueled launch vehicle to go into orbit. This was not without its difficulties, however, as Falcon 1 suffered three failed launches from 2006 until its successful 2008 launch. SpaceX would find success between 2015 and 2018 with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket, as well as its Dragon spacecraft next. Their most notable launch to date is the Demo-2, which made SpaceX the first private company to place a person into orbit, as well as to dock a crewed spacecraft with the International Space Station.

SpaceX is now looking forward to their dearMoon project, a lunar circumnavigation mission set for 2023. This won't help Elon Musk's Net Worth in 2021, but it will help his net worth in that year!

Musk is also most notable for his association with Tesla, Inc., with him investing $6.5 million into the company in 2004 and becoming its majority stakeholder and chairman of the board. He eventually became Tesla's CEO after founder Martin Ebernhard was ousted from the company.

Tesla would go on to build the Roadster in 2008, becoming the very first company to serially produce an all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. They would go on to release the four-door Model S in 2012, the cross-over Model X in 2015, and the sedan-type Model 3 in 2017. The Model Y, another crossover model, was released in 2020.

They would also famously unveil the Cybertruck in 2019. This electric pick-up truck had an unusual, geometric design that was the subject of memes for numerous weeks.

Since Tesla was publicly listed in 2010, it has enjoyed a continuous uptrend that saw it become the most valuable carmaker in the world by the summer of 2020. By October 2021, it had already reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion, making Tesla only the sixth American company to accomplish this feat.

Another one of Musk's endeavors is Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup founded in 2016 that aims to integrate the human brain with Artificial Intelligence. Musk describes an early iteration of the startup's device as “a FitBit in your skull”. He has claimed that this device can cure disabilities like blindness and deafness, although this has been criticized by a number of neuroscientists.

2016 also saw Musk founding The Boring Company, an infrastructure and tunnel construction services company. It aims to build intra-city or “loop” transit systems while looking to build tunnels for Musk's conceptual Hyperloop transportation system. Currently, The Boring Company has already completed two loop tunnels in Las Vegas, as well as one in Los Angeles County. A Hyperloop test tunnel has also been built in Las Vegas.

Musk is well-known for Tesla, SpaceX, and the other aforementioned ventures. However, he's had his fair share of controversies as well. Numerous accounts and anecdotes have been critical of Musk as an employer, with claims of Musk being “degenerate” and a “pathological sociopath”. He has infamously appeared as a guest in The Joe Rogan Experience, wherein Musk sampled a cannabis-laced cigar. This incident had numerous ramifications, including a drop of Tesla stock price. Other controversies involve the Thai Tham Luang cave rescue and alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Through his ventures, controversies, and social media antics, Musk has been a large part of pop culture in the 2010s and is certainly one of the most influential people on the planet. Musk is also one of the richest people in the world, currently the second wealthiest person on Earth behind Amazon's Jeff Bezos, after claiming the top spot in September 2021. He also became the first person to have recorded a net worth of over $300 billion in November 2021. As of December 2021, he is worth a staggering $274 billion.

Were you at all stunned by Elon Musk's net worth in 2021?