Who is Elon Musk and what is his net worth?

BBC News

2 days ago

It seems like not a day goes by without billionaire Elon Musk making headlines.The boss of X (formerly Twitter), Tesla and SpaceX is the world's richest person and has used his platform to make his views known on a vast array of topics.He has charged ahead with human brain chip trials at his firm Neuralink - three patients currently have implants supplied by it.He's also played with turning X into a super app and tried to cement his presence in the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence, despite having warned it could lead to humanity's extinction.And Musk's reach has expanded further still, after Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential election - in which the Tesla executive played a key but controversial role.The president picked the self-proclaimed "first buddy" to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (or Doge - a nod to Musk's favourite cryptocurrency, Dogecoin).Musk denied a "hostile takeover" as his agency, which is not an official government department, implemented cuts such as dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which distributes tens of billions of dollars' worth of overseas aid every year.But also cut were sales and profits at Tesla, as some buyers objected to Musk's actions.Some online have used the moniker "Swasticars" to refer to them, following Musk's controversial arm gesture at a rally celebrating Trump's return to office.He announced his departure from the White House on 28 May.Days earlier, he had criticised one of Trump's signature policies, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending.Musk told the BBC's US partner CBS News he was "disappointed" by the plan, which he felt "undermines" the work he did for the president on reducing spending.He said that while he would leave the White House, Doge's mission to cut government spending would continue and "only strengthen over time".
It's not just in the US where Musk has waded into political controversy. In the UK, Musk accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of being "deeply complicit" in grooming gang "mass rapes in exchange for votes" - while Sir Keir accused critics of "spreading lies and misinformation".In Germany, Musk has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and urged Germans to back the party in forthcoming elections.In the UK and Germany, 71% of people said they took a negative view of Musk, with 63% saying they don't think he has much knowledge of national issues, according to YouGov.
Where was Elon Musk born?
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk showed his talents for entrepreneurship early, going door-to-door with his brother selling homemade chocolate Easter eggs and developing his first computer game at the age of 12.He has described his childhood as difficult, affected by his parents' divorce, bullying at school and his own difficulty picking up on social cues because of Asperger's Syndrome. At the earliest opportunity, he left home for college, moving to Canada and then the US, where he studied economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League college.In a 2010 essay for Marie Claire, his first wife, Justine Musk, a writer whom he met in college and married in 2000, wrote that even before making his millions Musk was "not a man who takes no for an answer"."The will to compete and dominate, that made him so successful in business, did not magically shut off when he came home," she recalled, adding that he told her while dancing at their wedding, "I am the alpha in this relationship."
How did Elon Musk make his money?
After being accepted to a physics graduate degree programme at Stanford University, Musk quickly dropped out and founded two technology start-ups during the "dotcom boom" of the 1990s. These included a web software firm and an online banking company that eventually became PayPal, which was sold to eBay in 2002 for $1.5bn (£1.2bn).He ploughed his fortune into a new rocket company, SpaceX - which he aimed to make a cost-effective alternative to Nasa - and a new electric car company, Tesla, where he chaired the board until becoming chief executive in 2008.
The two firms are credited with upending their industries, even as they sometimes veered close to financial collapse.More recent business ventures include his takeover of social media platform Twitter in October 2022.He dramatically reduced the size of its workforce including, controversially, cuts to teams responsible for keeping the platform safe; rebranded the company as X; and introduced new premium subscriptions so that the business did not rely on advertising alone for income.Musk's long-term ambition is for X to become an "everything app" offering a range of services. However, so far the value of the firm has plunged from the $44bn he originally paid to just $9.4bn, according to some estimates.Since Musk's takeover companies have been choosing to leave the platform in what's been termed "the great X-odus".Reports suggest hate speech has been growing under Musk's X tenure, and some firms don't want to be associated with that.Leaving X can be a tricky decision for brandsHe also has ambitions in the AI sector, being an early investor in ChatGPT's parent company before parting ways in 2018, and setting up his own company xAI "to understand the true nature of the universe" in 2023.In February 2024, he sued OpenAI and its boss Sam Altman, saying the firm he helped found had reneged on its non-profit, open source origins by hitching its wagon to Microsoft.A year later, Musk led a takeover bid which was firmly rejected by Altman, who suggested a $9.74bn counter-offer for X."I'm never hugely convinced that he knows what he wants to do tomorrow," says journalist Chris Stokel-Walker of Musk's wide-ranging interests. "He very much leads by instinct."In a 2015 biography, author Ashlee Vance described Musk as "a confrontational know-it-all" with an "abundant ego". But he also called him an awkward dancer and diffident public speaker.In the press, he's been dubbed both a mad genius and Twitter's biggest troll - known as much for his lofty ambitions as his petty fights, not to mention the more serious lawsuits he and his companies have faced from regulators, investors and others over issues such as racial discrimination and the trustworthiness of his claims.Divorced three times - twice from the same woman, British actress Talulah Riley - Musk is frank about his faults."If you list my sins, I sound like the worst person on Earth," he said in a TED interview in 2022. "But if you put those against the things I've done right, it makes much more sense."
What is Elon Musk's net worth?
Those contradictions certainly haven't stopped Musk from amassing a fortune.According to Bloomberg's index, tracking the wealth of the world's billionaires, Musk is the richest of them all.It estimates his current net worth to be around $386bn, with his fortune soaring alongside Tesla's share price following Trump's election victory.That's based largely on the value of his shares in Tesla, of which he owns more than 13%. The company's stock soared in value - some say unreasonably - in 2020 as the firm's output increased and it started to deliver regular profits.The shares plunged at the end of 2022, with some blaming the distraction of the Twitter takeover for the fall, though they have since recovered a lot of ground.And throughout 2024 Musk was locked in a legal battle over a $56bn pay package from Tesla with a Delaware judge rejecting his claim to it for a second time in December.Judge Kathaleen McCormick called the pay-out an "unfathomable sum", and argued Musk had influenced the company's board and shareholders - with 75% of them voting to back his pay deal in June.Is Elon Musk worth his $56bn Tesla pay package?
Musk also champions digital currencies and has a hand in several other smaller companies, including tunnel-maker the Boring Company.Musk, who wears the mantle of a workaholic proudly, has often said he's not in business simply to make money - claims he repeated recently with regard to his Twitter takeover."Elon only gets involved with things if he feels that they're critically important for some reason... for the sake of society or humanity," says friend and Tesla investor Ross Gerber.
Why does Elon Musk support Trump?
For a long time Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, resisted efforts to label his politics - calling himself "half-Democrat, half-Republican", "politically moderate" and "independent".He says he voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and - reluctantly - Joe Biden, all of them Democrats.But in recent years he's swung behind Donald Trump, who is a Republican.Musk told media company the Daily Wire that his transgender daughter was "killed" by transitioning, and that he "vowed to destroy the woke mind virus". He is now estranged from his daughter.Musk officially endorsed Trump for a second term in 2024 after his attempted assassination and became one of the campaign's foremost backers and influencers.He became critical of the Democrat party's stance on a number of issues, including the economy, immigration and gun control - decrying many of its policies as "woke".Musk also repeatedly claimed that freedom of speech, enshrined in the first amendment of the US Constitution, would be under threat with another Democrat government.He appeared at several Republican rallies in the run-up to the election, raised millions to fund a political action committee to help re-elect Trump, and frequently voiced his support for Trump in posts on X.Musk's America Super PAC also ran a controversial $1m giveaway to voters in battleground states in the last weeks of the campaign.Why tech bros are turning to TrumpIt was far from his first political controversy.He has shared controversial takes on X about issues facing countries worldwide, such as suggesting the UK was on the cusp of "civil war" amid violent unrest in August 2024.While Musk provided his Starlink satellite internet service to Ukraine, he also attracted criticism for refusing an emergency request from Kyiv to activate Starlink in Sevastopol, home to a major Russian navy port.In the US, he moved to Texas, complaining of California's regulations and high taxes; has clashed with union organisers; and, in the spring of 2020, decried coronavirus lockdowns as "fascist".
In the past he has said that he sees his businesses as a form of philanthropy, because they are focused on solving major human issues, such as climate change in the case of Tesla.However, he has since moderated his views on climate change, tweeting that it is "real, just much slower than alarmists claim".Despite his own interest in artificial intelligence, he has also been one of the most prominent figures expressing concern about the supposed threat to humanity's future that super-intelligent AIs might pose.He has claimed that the rise of artificial intelligence, combined with a declining birth rate, could result in "not enough people" being in the world.Musk has had 12 children - six with his first wife, three with Canadian singer Grimes, and three with Shivon Zilis.Following the birth of his twins with Ms Zilis, he tweeted: "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis."Additional reporting by Tom Espiner & Tom Gerken