Elon Musk is back in a club that currently has only one member. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk’s wealth climbed over the weekend to approximately $1.04 trillion, after surging by about $65 billion in a single day. This is the first time in about three months that his fortune has returned above the symbolic trillion-dollar threshold.
Musk previously became the first person in history to reach that net worth in June, following the landmark initial public offering of SpaceX. However, the celebration was short-lived. Shares of the space company fell over the summer, taking his personal net worth down with them. At one point, more than $600 billion was erased from his fortune compared to its peak, but the trajectory has now reversed once again.
Two companies, nearly a trillion dollars
To understand how one person can gain $65 billion in a day, it is important to remember that this is largely paper wealth. More than 98% of Musk’s net worth is tied to his holdings in SpaceX and Tesla. This means that when the companies’ market values rise, the estimated value of his stock holdings jumps along with them. It does not mean that $65 billion was deposited into his bank account.
Since the beginning of October, SpaceX stock has risen by about 13%, while Tesla gained about 6.7%. The combined surge was enough to push Musk back over the threshold.
SpaceX is currently the single most important asset in calculating his wealth. The company went public in June in the largest IPO in history, raising about $86 billion. After a dizzying opening, the stock underwent a sharp correction over the summer, but has recently returned to an upward trend.
Tesla delivers cars again
Tesla also gave Musk reason to smile. The company delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, well above analyst expectations of approximately 456,900. The figure revived the possibility that Tesla could return to annual sales growth this year, following two years of declines.
The recovery came in part from Europe, where an improvement in sales was recorded, while investors simultaneously continue to price Tesla well beyond its core automotive business.
The narrative Musk is selling Wall Street includes autonomous driving, robotaxis, humanoid robots, and artificial intelligence. Tesla is already operating the Cybercab in its robotaxi fleet in Texas, and its self-driving software has received regulatory approvals in several European countries.
The world’s largest fortune, and one of the most volatile
The $1 trillion figure sounds almost unimaginable, but Musk’s trajectory illustrates just how volatile such wealth can be.
In June, his fortune reached a peak of approximately $1.45 trillion, according to Forbes. Less than a month later, it fell below $900 billion, primarily due to the drop in SpaceX stock.
Now he is once again above $1 trillion. In this sense, the story is not just about the world’s richest man. It also reveals something about the current market: Investors continue to attach immense valuation to companies promising to lead the next generation of transportation, space, and artificial intelligence.
And when Musk holds such a large stake in two of them, a few strong trading days are enough to generate or erase wealth equal to the entire annual budget of entire countries.
