Elon Musk has reportedly become the first person to achieve a net worth of $500 billion, according to Forbes. Musk is $150 billion ahead of the world’s second-wealthiest person, Larry Ellison.
Forbes reports that Tesla shares rose nearly 4% on Wednesday, adding an estimated $9.3 billion to Musk’s wealth.
In March 2020, Musk was worth $24.6 billion. According to Fox News, Musk was worth “$100 billion by late 2020, $200 billion in 2021 and $400 billion in 2024.” Should the trend continue, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO may be the world’s first trillionaire by 2033.
Last month, Tesla proposed a $1 trillion package for Musk, to which Musk said, “It’s not about ‘compensation,’ but about me having enough influence over Tesla to ensure safety if we build millions of robots. If I can just get kicked out in the future by activist shareholder advisory firms who don’t even own Tesla shares themselves, I’m not comfortable with that future.”
Musk recently filed a lawsuit against former xAI employee Xuechen Li, accusing Li of stealing proprietary technology before shifting to OpenAI. The suit calls Li as a “Chinese national” and alleges he copied confidential data from his xAI-issued laptop shortly before resigning and joining the rival AI company. According to court documents, Li was one of only 20 early engineers at xAI, with access to its core technology—reportedly including AI systems surpassing the capabilities of ChatGPT. While receiving a $7 million in a cash equity payout, he allegedly downloaded sensitive company files to his personal system, renamed and compressed them, and deleted his browser and system history to cover his tracks.
Musk is seeking a restraining order to prevent Li from working at OpenAI until the trade secret dispute is resolved.
