How Elon Musk, Richest Man In The World, Earned His First $1 Million

Billionaire Elon Musk, who is the founder and owner of Tesla, X.com, SpaceX, and The Boring Company, is ranked as the world's richest person by Forbes and Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a total net worth of $236 billion. Unlike other billionaires and usual investment stories, Mr Musk undertook some risky investment options which ultimately made him the richest private citizen on the planet since 2021.

Mr Musk's ownership share in electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and his holdings in SpaceX and the Boring Company are responsible for his startling increase in fortune. However, Tesla has been the main source of his wealth, with the company's stock rising by more than 1,100 per cent in the last five years as investors rewarded it for its rise in vehicle sales. 

Early Life

According to TIME Magazine, the Musk family was well-to-do. He had an interest in computers and designing at an early age and attended Queen's University in Canada when he was 17. In 1992, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied physics and business. There, Mr Musk along with a couple of friends rented out an off-campus house and turned it into a nightclub business. 

Young Entrepreneur

With the advent of the internet, Mr Musk along with his brother Kimbal founded an online business directory called Zip2. They sold the company for $307 million in 1999 to Compaq, a once-dominant computer manufacturing company. He alone made $22 million with the sale of Zip2, and he then spent $1 million on a McLaren F1 supercar, as per the outlet. He then went on to start a banking startup which was merged with another company and ended up being named PayPal, in which he took the role of the CEO. Mr Musk made a huge fortune of $180 million when eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in 2002.

Setting Up Of Tesla And SpaceX

The billionaire founded SpaceX in 2002 with the mission of "colonising" Mars. In 2003, he launched Tesla with the vision of making electric sports cars. Both businesses had a challenging beginning. As per the TIME report, Mr Musk claims he ultimately invested nearly all of the money from the sale of PayPal in these companies. SpaceX experienced numerous unsuccessful launches that nearly caused the company to go out of business, while Tesla encountered issues once its engineers learned its prototype battery packs were prone to catching fire. Tesla almost went bankrupt during the Great Recession in 2008. The situation improved gradually after NASA made investments in SpaceX and Tesla launched its Model S in 2012, which became a "mass-market" car in the US. According to Forbes, today he owns about 23 per cent of Tesla between stock and options. 

Other Ventures

Tunnel-digging firm The Boring Company and the neurotechnology business Neuralink were both founded by Mr Musk in 2016. The former raised $675 million in April 2022 at a $5.7 billion valuation, as per Forbes. He also purchased Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022 and owns an estimated 74 per cent of the company, which is now rebranded to X.