According to Bloomberg, the number of people worth over $100 billion rose to 16 this year. Aside from Elon Musk, three others had net worths that increased by at least $70 billion. Mark Zuckerberg’s rose $85 billion to $231 billion. Oracle founder Larry Ellison’s rose $71 billion to $193 billion. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, posted an increase of $78 billion to $122 billion.
Musk’s net worth rose $239 billion to a staggering $468 billion. That is close to the gross domestic product of the Netherlands.
Musk’s net worth rose mainly because he owned part of three companies. Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), of which he is chief executive officer, is worth $1.47 billion. That is up 82% this year. Tesla has 49% of the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) market and is seventh in China, the world’s largest EV market. Tesla’s value is also based on a lead in self-driving cars. Musk owns 20.5% of Tesla.
SpaceX virtually controls the U.S. rocket business and is the leader in the industry worldwide. Bloomberg reports:
SpaceX has established itself as one of the industry’s preeminent rocket launch providers, lofting satellites, cargo and people to space for NASA, the Pentagon and commercial partners, and is building out a large network of Starlink satellites providing internet service.
Musk owns 42% of SpaceX and has 79% of the company’s voting shares. He can make decisions about SpaceX without challenge. SpaceX was recently valued at $350 billion.
Among Musk’s other holdings, the most valuable may eventually be xAI, a major rival to OpenAI in the race to control the future of artificial intelligence. xAI recently raised $6 billion, which puts its value at between $40 billion and $50 billion. Musk owns over half of xAI.
Musk owns parts of several other companies, including social media platform X and implantable brain-computer interface operation Neuralink.
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