On June 11 (US time), Reuters reported that billionaire Elon Musk became the first person in the world to own assets exceeding the 1,000 billion USD mark after SpaceX completed its initial public offering (IPO).
According to Reuters, SpaceX raised about 75 billion USD in the IPO, marking one of the largest deals in financial market history. Before SpaceX shares were listed, Forbes estimated Musk's assets at about 780 billion USD.
With SpaceX shares starting to trade, the value of shares that Mr. Musk holds in this company is estimated at about 866 billion USD. When adding shares in Tesla and other businesses, his total assets are said to exceed 1,100 billion USD.
Reuters reported that most of Musk's assets are currently concentrated in SpaceX - a corporation operating in the fields of rockets, satellites and artificial intelligence. This is also considered the center of the 54-year-old billionaire's business empire.
Mr. Matt Durot - Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Forbes' asset division - said that the gap between Mr. Musk and the remaining rich people in the world is very large.
The second richest person currently only owns about 300 billion USD, less than 1/3 of Musk's potential assets," Durot said.
Elon Musk was born in 1971, in Pretoria (South Africa) and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (USA). He became globally famous thanks to Tesla and SpaceX before expanding his influence by acquiring the social network Twitter for $44 billion in 2022.
In addition to Tesla and SpaceX, Mr. Musk also participated in founding many other businesses such as Neuralink, The Boring Company and xAI. Many investors believe that the success of these companies has created the so-called "Elon premium" - a valuation that far exceeds traditional financial methods thanks to faith in Musk's vision.
However, the billionaire has also been repeatedly involved in controversies related to corporate governance, politics and social media statements. However, according to Reuters, investor confidence in the ability to realize bold ideas is still an important factor helping the value of Musk's companies continue to increase sharply.
With the new milestone, Elon Musk not only maintains his position as the richest person in the world but also becomes the first trillion-dollar billionaire in modern history.
