In just three days, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, first rose to the ranks of the "trillionaires," only to fall out of that club due to a decline of several billion dollars. Despite still maintaining a huge advantage of $600 billion and firmly holding the title of the world's richest person, this entrepreneur stated that his wealth always depends on the success or failure of his companies.
Earlier this year, Musk said in an interview with entrepreneur Peter Diamandis ( Peter Diamandis ): “‘Trillionaire’ refers to a certain percentage of ownership in the company I founded, not to the money lying in bank accounts.” This interview took place approximately within the first three months after he became a trillionaire for the first time on SpaceX after June IPO.
According to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index, Musk's net worth has declined from its recent high of $1.05 trillion set on Tuesday to $987 billion by Thursday.
Yesterday, the stock price of his aerospace company fell by 3.5%, below $162; at the same time, his electric vehicle business, Tesla, also saw a decline of over 2%. Forbes estimates that after the SpaceX stock price fell on Wednesday morning, Musk lost $21 billion, at a time when reports indicated that the company planned to raise $40 billion to purchase NVIDIA chips. This strategy may trigger concerns in the market regarding the company's capital needs and debt burden, despite SpaceX's substantial investments in AI infrastructure.
This means that after regaining the title of "trillionaire" on Monday, Musk experienced a decline of $63 billion. At the beginning of the week, the stock price of SpaceX rose by nearly 8%, and Morgan Stanley analysts even described the stock as "cheap" at that price level. Since Musk holds approximately 4.76 billion shares of SpaceX stock, including 1.3 billion restricted shares that have not yet been vested, his net worth subsequently soared from $976.9 billion to $1.04 trillion.
In one's lifetime, very few people—if any at all—can achieve a net worth in the tens of millions. However, Musk suggests that this astonishing figure is not quite what it seems on the surface. He also predicts that in 10 years, his own wealth may become meaningless.
"What I hold is a percentage of these companies. These companies are doing a lot of useful things, and their value is growing," the tech entrepreneur continued, "I hold a percentage of these companies, and when you add it all up, that results in that seemingly high number."
The wealth of Musk and other billionaires is at the mercy of the stock market.
Elon Musk is just one of many wealthy individuals around the world, whose net worth fluctuates significantly with the stock market.
Last year, Larry Ellison ( Larry Ellison ), the founder of Oracle, briefly took over the title of world's richest person from Elon Musk. At that time, Oracle's financial results, which exceeded expectations, drove the company's stock price up by 36%. This 82-year-old entrepreneur, who holds 40% of Oracle's shares, saw his wealth surge by $101 billion. However, just two days after Oracle's stock price soared, Ellison's net worth is estimated to have decreased by $34 billion, while Musk's increased by $35 billion, allowing him to reclaim the top spot.
On the other hand, Michael Dell ( Michael Dell ), who holds a 40% stake in the tech company with the same name, saw his wealth increase by approximately $122 billion between September of this year and the corresponding period in 2025, almost doubling in that one year. Larry Page ( Larry Page )'s net worth increased by $16.3 billion during the same period, while Jeff Bezos ( Jeff Bezos )'s wealth grew by $24.5 billion.
However, despite the significant increase in wealth, Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Fund and a billionaire ($Ray Dalio), also echoed Musk's view that paper wealth and disposable cash are two different things. An increase in asset value may make one appear richer on paper, but to turn this wealth into money that can actually be spent, people must sell these assets.
Earlier this year, Dalio said in Steven Bartlett's podcast “The Diary of a CEO”: “Wealth is not equal to money. You will see many people become richer, but you cannot spend wealth. You have to sell wealth in order to get money, because you can only spend money.”
Musk said that in the next decade, money itself will not be important either.
As the wealth of billionaires continues to expand, while many workers struggle to keep up with wage increases, Elon Musk—probably the richest person on Earth and sometimes the only trillionaire—believes that as AI brings in profits, the importance of monetary wealth will decline.
In response to how companies can reap benefits in the era of AI, Musk told The Economist, "By 2036, money will no longer be important."
He stated that the reason is that AI will take over so many human jobs that work will become a voluntary activity, and cash itself will become insignificant. As early as 2024, Musk proposed the concept of "universal high income" (universal high income) to distribute funds in a world where work is no longer necessary. This 55-year-old entrepreneur drew inspiration from Ian M. Banks' science fiction novel "Civilization" (Iain M Banks), which depicts a world filled with intelligent robots and without traditional jobs.
“In those books, money doesn’t exist. That’s quite interesting,” Musk said earlier this year in the podcast “Moonshots” co-hosted with Peter Diamandis, “And I guess that if we extend that time frame long enough—assuming that technology and robots will continue to advance, which seems very likely—money will eventually lose its relevance.”
