A slump in SpaceX’s stock price and new restrictions on $116 billion of Musk’s Tesla shares have dropped him from the four-comma-club.
Elon Musk became the first trillionaire in world history when SpaceX went public on June 12, boosting his fortune to an estimated $1.1 trillion. Then as the rocket maker’s stock soared by 40% to its all-time high during the trading day on June 16, Musk’s net worth briefly peaked at a record $1.45 trillion, before SpaceX’s stock sank by 31% through Tuesday. Thanks to that slump, and new restrictions on $116 billion of Musk’s Tesla stock, the world’s richest person is no longer a trillionaire. He’s worth an estimated $962 billion as of the end of the day Tuesday.
Last Tuesday, Musk gave up $7.1 billion of his Tesla stock to cover the exercise price on all of the Tesla stock options he received as part of his 2018 CEO performance award, which was voided by a Delaware judge in 2024 and restored by the Delaware Supreme Court in 2025. After the latter ruling, Tesla and Musk entered into a new agreement in April that turned Musk’s options into restricted stock upon exercise that he will forfeit unless he remains at Tesla through January 2028 as CEO or “an executive officer responsible for the Company’s product development or operations.”
Forbes has removed the $116 billion of restricted Tesla stock (representing an 8% stake in the company) from our calculation of Musk’s fortune to be consistent with how we treat other billionaires’ unvested restricted stock.
He may still get the shares before 2028 after all, however. With rumors of SpaceX acquiring Tesla heating up, it’s possible that Musk could unlock his restricted stock early, thanks to a provision in his April agreement with Tesla stating that “the Restricted Shares will become fully vested upon the occurrence of a Change in Control so long as the Participant has not incurred a cessation of Eligible Service prior to such Change in Control.” For now, Musk owns a nearly 11% stake in Tesla (excluding the restricted stock), worth $151 billion.
Despite the recent slump in SpaceX’s stock price, the rocketmaker is still Musk’s biggest asset by far. He owns 4.8 billion shares of the rocketmaker, worth $744 billion, and another 350 million stock options with an exercise price of $8.40 per share, worth $52 billion—good for a 38% stake in the company, worth $796 billion. Given the enormous size of Musk’s SpaceX holdings, a small rebound in the rocketmaker’s stock price could easily make him a trillionaire once again.
Not included in Forbes’ estimate of Musk’s net worth: huge sets of performance-based restricted shares that could boost his stakes in SpaceX and Tesla to as much as 47% and 29%, respectively, before taxes and the cost of unlocking the restricted shares. To earn all that stock, Musk will have to achieve lofty goals like growing SpaceX and Tesla’s market caps to $7.5 trillion and $8.5 trillion, respectively, and establishing a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.
For now, Musk will have to settle for being the richest billionaire on Earth—worth more than three times as much as the world’s second wealthiest person, Google cofounder Larry Page, who is worth an estimated $284 billion.
Read the full article here
