Elon Musk's net worth has surged to a record $648 billion — and his wealth gain this year exceeds LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault's entire $205 billion fortune, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's wealth has jumped by $178 billion in just two days, boosting his year-to-date gain to an unmatched $216 billion.
If that figure were his entire fortune, he would rank sixth on the rich list — ahead of not just Arnault but also former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Musk's record wealth partly reflects Tesla stock closing at an all-time high of $490 on Tuesday, as investors cheered news that the EV maker is testing driverless robotoxis on Austin, Texas streets. Musk holds a roughly 12% stake in Tesla, valued at around $200 billion.
But the bigger driver of his wealth surge this week has been SpaceX's valuation reportedly doubling since the summer to $800 billion, based on a secondary share sale by the aerospace company ahead of a potential IPO next year.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is now more than twice as wealthy as number two on the rich list, Alphabet cofounder Larry Page, who's worth $264 billion after a year-to-date wealth gain of $96 billion — second only to Musk.
He's also more than four times as rich as Warren Buffett, the outgoing CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who's worth $150 billion after giving more than half of his fortune to good causes.
Musk's personal fortune exceeds the market values of Oracle, Mastercard, and Johnson & Johnson — three of the 20 most valuable US public companies with market capitalizations exceeding $500 billion. His recent gains have narrowed the gap with Visa, which has a market value of $660 billion.
Musk's epic wealth rally
The serial entrepreneur has had a striking wealth recovery in recent months. Tesla stock roughly halved between mid-January and mid-March as his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sparked public backlash and worried shareholders that he was getting distracted.
Musk even briefly lost his top spot on the rich list to Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison in September, before Tesla shares rallied to fresh highs.
Tesla and other huge US tech companies have seen their stock prices soar this year, fueled by immense buzz around AI. In Musk's case, he's excited investors by spending big on AI to develop Tesla's autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.
By contrast, skeptics such as Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame have warned that AI companies are overspending on microchips and data centers, and diagnosed a stock-market bubble that's bound to burst.
The AI boom has translated into huge wealth gains for key shareholders such as Musk, Page and his cofounder Sergey Brin, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Ellison, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang.
Musk could become the world's first trillionaire after Tesla shareholders approved his pay package in November, which promises to roughly double his stake in Tesla over the next decade if he hits milestones such as selling 1 million Optimus robots and raising adjusted profits from around $17 billion last year to $400 billion.
