Elon Musk is the (almost) $500 billion man.
The phrase “Rockefeller Rich” still seems more natural, but according to Forbes’ most recent ranking, Elon Musk is now the richest person in history.
With the help of the surge in Tesla (TSLA) stock, Forbes’ latest estimate on Wednesday placed Musk’s net worth beyond $500 billion. However, by the end of business, the volatile executive’s fortune had dropped to $499.1 billion.
In any case, Musk is now seen as having surpassed John D. Rockefeller. According to Harvard Business School, Rockefeller’s 1937 $1.4 billion fortune was equivalent to 1.5% of GDP. Musk’s wealth is only 1.6% greater than the $30.49 trillion in GDP that the United States recorded in the second quarter.
The fact that Musk, whose money is mostly derived from electric vehicles that avoid Rockefeller’s source of wealth, surpassed Rockefeller, who gained his fortune from Standard Oil, is somewhat ironic.
According to Forbes, Musk has a $168 billion investment in SpaceX, a firm that explores space, and a $60 billion stake in xAI, an AI startup that he merged with the social media platform X.
Despite Musk’s enormous wealth, he may not be able to defeat competitors like OpenAI, which was recently valued at $500 billion, Anthropic, Alphabet (GOOGL), and Meta (META) in the AI arms race. “[xAI is] in real danger of not being able to raise capital,” SemiAnalysis founder, CEO, and principal analyst Dylan Patel stated in a podcast this week.
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“As rich as he is, among the richest people in the world, maybe the richest, he can’t go to a 3-gigawatt data center unless he gets capital, which he can’t do unless he gets revenue and fundraising,” Patel added.
Musk is also attempting to populate Mars through SpaceX, with plans to deploy five uncrewed Starships there the following year.
