Born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa, Elon Musk is simply inspirational all around. Known largely for his work as a founder and co-founder of the highly successful companies like SpaceX, Telsa Motors, Zip2, and Paypal, it truly is no surprise that Elon Musk has made quite the name for himself as infamously notorious engineer, inventor, and investor. But how much exactly has all of Elson’s hard work assisted him in adding to his bank account and how much exactly is Elon Musk worth now? The answer might enough to motivate you to believe that ‘dreaming big’ is the way to go…
Elon Musk’s Net Worth as of 2019: $13.5 Billion
1995-1999
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Kicking off his career by founding the web software company Zip2 in 1995, Elon and his brother Kimbal developed an internet cityguide for the news paper publishing industry, and obtained contracts with The New York Times and The Chicago Tribune. Four years later in 1999 the company sold to Compaq, and in turn Elon was given a solid 7% of the profit adding a nice $22 Million to his net worth right off the bat.
Only one month after selling Zip2, Elon jumped right back on the success band wagon, co-founding the electronic payment system company X.com with the assistance of $10 million dollars from the sale of Zip2.
2000-2004
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Between 2000-2004 Elon Musk’s success continued to soar. X.com merged with a company named Confinity, which owned a money transfer service called PayPal. One year later with high hopes of focusing on the money transfer service alone, the company changed their name to Paypal. Paypal, which would end up being sold to the note-worthy online auction website Ebay.com, assisted Elon in adding $165 million to his net worth.
In 2001 Elon dreamed up ‘Mars Oasis’, a project which focused on landing an experimental greenhouse on Mars. Although Mars Oasis never quite took off, the concept resulted in his decision to launch a company called SpaceX. In 2002 Elon founded Space Exploration Technologies dead set to focus on manufacturing and developing space launch vehicles.
How’d that go? The first two vehicles that SpaceX brought fourth were: The Falcon 1 and Falcon 2, and in turn went on to eventually make history with the help of the SpaceX Dragon as the first commercial company to launch and berth a vehicle to the International Space Station. Yeah, we’ll just call that one a success!
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SpaceX’s Estimated Contribution to Elon Musk’s Net Worth: $3.6 Billion
2005-2009
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Jumping on board with Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, Elon began his work with Telsa Motors by leading the Series A round of investment in February 2004, joining their board of directors as its chairman. After spending four years actively working with Telsa and overseeing projects such as the design of the Roadster, Elon assumed the position of CEO and product architect in 2008.
Although later in 2008 Elon’s net worth ended up taking a minor $20 Million dollar hit due to him divorcing his first wife Justine, in 2009 he had jumped back on track when SpaceX signed a contract with NASA for a minimum of $1.6 billion dollar’s to allow the Falcon 1 rocket to be the first privately funded liquid-fueled vehicle to put a satellite into Earth orbit. What was the maximum? Oh, you know; $3.1 Billion, no big deal!
Elon Musk, Instagram
Telsa Motors Estimated Contribution to Elon Musk’s Net Worth: $5.7 Billion
2010-2014
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2010-2014 continued to be excellent years on regards to Elon Musk’s net worth. He provided the financial capital for Solar City, a company owned by two of his cousins, in which he is currently still the companies largest shareholder. SolarCity is now the largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.
In 2013 Elon won the Heinlein Prize for Advances in Space Commercialization award which assisted him in gaining not only some well deserved respect, but also $500,000. He then went on to buy a $17 Million dollar mansion in Bel Air, CA and basically; we don’t blame the guy one bit!
SolarCity’s Estimated Contribution to Elon Musk’s Net Worth: $1.6 billion
2015-2017
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With many years of success behind him, Elon Musk has yet to lose any motivation.
In 2015 he announced the creation of OpenAI, a research company focusing on artificial intelligence that hopes to one day develop AI technologies that are both safe and beneficial to humanity. In 2015 Elon’s net worth experienced a minor drop of $16 Million when he filled for divorce with actress Talulah Riley, but the digits don’t lie and all we’ve got to say is that $13.5 billion sure is one heck of a bank account balance!
On March 31, 2016, Elon unveiled Tesla Model 3.
Although his luck with women has been pricey to say the least, as of 2016 Elon Musk sits at #94 on Forbes Billionaires list and we’re sure with his history of success that his EPIC $13.5 billion dollar bank roll is just bound to keep on climbing!
2018
The Silicon Valley maestro, Elon Musk would face the most challenging year with Tesla’s launch of a mainstream car.
2019
Elon Musk has broken the ground at a new factory in Shanghai and all set to produce “affordable versions” of the Tesla Model 3 by the end of the year.
