Musk is the chief executive of Tesla, the world's most valuable carmaker. The Austin, Texas-based company sells electric vehicles and home solar batteries. Musk's also the chief executive of SpaceX, a rocket manufacturer tapped by NASA to resupply the space station, which merged with his AI and social media company xAI.
Musk is CEO of publicly traded Tesla, the world's most valuable carmaker, and closely held rocket business SpaceX.
Musk owns about 11% of Tesla, according to a September 2025 form 4 filing. He also holds about 304 million exercisable stock options from his 2018 compensation package.
In February 2026, SpaceX acquired Musk's AI and social media company xAI. Musk is calculated to own 44% of the combined company based on his prior ownership stakes in the two companies and their merger valuations. SpaceX was valued at roughly $800 billion in a December 2025 tender offer and xAI at about $230 billion in a January 2026 funding round, and the combined company is valued at their sum of $1.03 trillion. While the combined company was valued at $1.25 trillion for the purposes of merger calculations, this valuation is not used for Musk's wealth calculation because he controlled both companies and no new money was raised. A 5% private company discount is applied.
Musk's stakes in his startups Neuralink and The Boring Company are calculated using reports and Pitchbook data, and values taken from funding rounds.
Musk had pledged 57% of his Tesla shares to secure personal indebtedness, according to the company's 2025 proxy. The maximum loan could be no more than the lesser of 25% of the value of those shares or $3.5 billion, according to the filing, and a $3.5 billion loan is included. Musk said in 2019 that some of his SpaceX shares were pledged. A liability is included to reflect calculated pledges of SpaceX shares assuming he has pledged 57% of his holding at a 25% loan-to-value ratio, with the calculation excluding the xAI portion of the company.
Born in South Africa to an engineer father and nutritionist mother, Musk left home as a 17-year-old for college in Canada, in part to avoid serving in the apartheid-era South African army. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in physics and economics, he enrolled at Stanford University. He dropped out after his first few days to pursue his three main areas of interest: the Internet, clean energy and space.
He created an online publishing platform called Zip2 in 1995 and sold it four years later for more than $300 million. He reinvested some of the proceeds to start X.com, an online payment system. He would merge that with what eventually became PayPal, the e-commerce site that was ultimately sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.
His next project: SpaceX, a closely held rocket company that was tapped by NASA to take over space shuttle's role of resupplying the International Space Station. A year later, he co-founded Tesla, the company that produced the world's first all-electric, zero-emission sports car in 2010. In the same year the company sold shares in a public offering.
His third company, SolarCity, was a provider of solar power systems. SolarCity sold shares in a public offering in 2012 and was bought by Tesla on Nov. 21, 2016.
Musk, who has said he intends to retire on planet Mars, joined Warren Buffett's Giving Pledge in April 2012.
Tesla became the world's most valuable carmaker in July 2020 and further gains led to Musk becoming the world's richest person in January 2021. He announced in October 2021 that Tesla would move its headquarters from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas.
In April 2022 Musk made an offer to buy Twitter Inc for $44 billion after acquiring a stake in the social-media firm. After its board agreed to recommend the deal, Musk spent months trying to terminate it. Musk eventually purchased Twitter in October 2022. He renamed the company X Corp. in April 2023.
Musk was the largest financial backer of Donald Trump's presidential campaign during the 2024 election, spending at least $277 million. Following Trump's win, Musk was tapped to lead a newly-created organization dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency.