Donald Trump may have won the Presidential election, but Elon Musk may have the most to celebrate as a truly unprecedented week comes to a close.
Elon started the week with a net worth of $260 billion. He ends the week with a net worth of $315 billion. That's a staggering $55 billion increase in a few short days. That net increase of $55 billion on its own would rank as the 25th-largest fortune in the world at the close of business Friday. And just to say it once more. That's how much Elon's fortune increased THIS WEEK. More specifically, in just three days, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The gain comes after Elon personally spent $130 million to help Donald Trump get reelected. Wall Street and average investors seem to think his payoff will come in the form of a more positive treatment of his various companies, notably Tesla, by the future Trump administration. Tesla's stock price is up 31% this week alone.
(Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
As we detailed yesterday, this is not the first time Elon's net worth has breached $300 billion. Elon's net worth topped $300 billion for the first time on October 28, 2021. A week later, his net worth briefly topped $340 billion. That still stands as his all-time peak net worth so far. That level also allowed Elon to officially break John D. Rockefeller's 80-year stint as the richest human in modern history.
He had some shaky ups and downs over the next three years, including a low point in April of this year when his net worth sunk to $168 billion.
Here are the questions on my mind right now:
Is he going to breach $340 billion again and set a new record for richest human of all time? Will he break $400 billion? How much higher could his net worth go? Are we living in a reality where Elon will eventually become the world's first TRILLIONAIRE? The way it must have seemed like science fiction a hundred years ago to imagine someone having a net worth of $100 billion, is that how we'll look at trillionaires soon? We currently have 16 people on earth with net worths above $100 billion, three above $200 billion, and one above $300 billion. And FYI, as a reminder, Bill Gates had a slam-dunk chance at becoming the world's first trillionaire, but he dropped the ball.
Whether Musk reaches the trillion-dollar milestone may depend less on politics and more on how these emerging technologies reshape our world. The real question might not be if we'll see our first trillionaire but rather what that milestone will tell us about the changing nature of wealth, power, and innovation in the 21st century.
What's clear is that we're witnessing wealth creation at a scale that would have seemed impossible just a generation ago. As the gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else continues to widen, these milestones may prompt important conversations about wealth concentration, economic opportunity, and the role of billionaires in shaping our collective future.
