After Losing More Than Half His Net Worth, Elon Musk Attempts To Raise $4 Billion For Another Company

Elon Musk just lived through the worst stretch of wealth destruction in financial history. His net worth peaked at roughly $1.45 trillion on June 16, 2026, the day SpaceX shares hit their all-time high. By July 27, Forbes tracked his fortune below $700 billion, a collapse of more than $750 billion in roughly six weeks. Musk himself acknowledged the reality, calling himself a “former” trillionaire. Through all of it, he has been quietly raising money for the one company in his portfolio that almost nobody talks about.

The Boring Company, Musk’s tunnel-construction venture, is reportedly in talks to raise about $4 billion in new funding at a valuation of roughly $20 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. That would more than triple its 2022 valuation of $5.7 billion, set during a $675 million Series C led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital. As of the most recent reporting, the deal has not closed and terms could change. Musk has not publicly commented.

Where the Money Went

The primary driver of the wipeout was SpaceX. SpaceX shares fell roughly 50% from their mid-June peak, erasing more than $1 trillion in market cap, with an aborted Starship launch accelerating the slide. Tesla compounded the damage. On July 22, 2026, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) reported second-quarter revenue of $28.24 billion but adjusted earnings of just $0.33 per share, missing consensus by 38.51%. Free cash flow swung to negative $1.09 billion as capital expenditures more than doubled. The stock closed at $313.03 on July 24, down 17.81% for the week and 30.39% year to date.

Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja told analysts that “CapEx more than doubled sequentially, and we expect it to increase further in the second half of 2026,” confirming Tesla will spend more than $25 billion this year and secure debt facilities to borrow up to $30 billion. Musk framed the outlays as “one of the fastest industrial scale-ups in America” since World War II. Short sellers booked roughly $4 billion in a single day on the Tesla drop.

Since the article was first published, SpaceX reported its first quarterly earnings as a public company on August 4, 2026. Revenue came in at $7.8 billion for the second quarter, well above the $6.8 billion Wall Street had forecast, and the net loss narrowed to $541 million from $1 billion in the year-ago period. Starlink subscribers doubled year over year to 12 million. The good news was overshadowed by capital expenditures of $18.4 billion in Q2 alone, more than six times higher than a year earlier, sending SpaceX shares down roughly 8% in after-hours trading.

The Company Nobody Watches

A $4 billion private round for a tunneling startup would ordinarily command front pages. It has not. That quiet has defined the Boring Company since Musk formally incorporated it in January 2017, after announcing the concept the prior December on X (then Twitter). The venture operates the Vegas Loop in Las Vegas, where it has now carried over four million riders across 11 operational stations. Total tunnel construction has reached roughly 11 miles, of which approximately 3.5 miles are currently active, with the remainder awaiting station completions and regulatory sign-offs. In March 2026, the company’s Prufrock-2 boring machine set a Vegas Loop record by completing a single 2.28-mile continuous tunnel drive near Westgate. Clark County has approved a full 68-mile, 104-station system, and the Strip segment expansion is targeted to begin in 2027.

The company has also moved beyond Las Vegas. Nashville’s Loop project is under construction. A 6.4-kilometer Dubai pilot is contracted to begin construction in late 2026. The Boring Company has pitched additional projects in Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles, though several of those have stalled without much public follow-up. Nevada regulators have recorded their own concerns: last year they cited the company for nearly 800 environmental violations related to its tunneling work.

The lack of media scrutiny remains striking. In Walter Isaacson’s 615-page biography of Musk, the Boring Company occupies only three pages. And nearly a decade after its founding, the gap between the company’s ambitions and its commercial track record is precisely what investors are being asked to price at $20 billion.

What to Watch

Two signals will reveal whether the raise holds. The first is who leads the check: a sovereign wealth fund or marquee Silicon Valley firm at that valuation would send a meaningful signal, while a syndicate of Musk-adjacent family offices would not. The second is whether SpaceX’s strong revenue beat on its first earnings report shifts investor sentiment back toward Musk’s broader ecosystem, lending credibility to the Boring Company’s fundraising conversations. Musk remains the world’s richest person by a wide margin even after the collapse. The Boring Company deal, if it closes on reported terms, will be the clearest test yet of whether the Musk brand alone can command a valuation nearly three and a half times higher than what sophisticated investors assigned it just four years ago.

Editor’s note: This update corrects Musk’s net worth peak from $1.32 trillion to $1.45 trillion (reached June 16, 2026) and his net worth at publication from roughly $832 billion to below $700 billion, per Forbes. It also updates the Vegas Loop’s operating footprint from 2.4 miles to approximately 3.5 miles across 11 stations with over four million riders carried, and adds SpaceX’s first public earnings report (August 4, 2026), which showed $7.8 billion in Q2 revenue against a $6.8 billion consensus estimate, alongside Nevada’s nearly 800 environmental violation citations against the Boring Company and confirmation that the Nashville Loop is now under construction.

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