The First Trillionaire in History? The Strategy That Put Elon Musk at the Top of the World

Elon Musk speaks about artificial intelligence and space travel / Reuters

Tonight could mark, for the first time in human history, an unprecedented economic event. If SpaceX is listed at the planned price of $135 per share, Elon Musk’s personal fortune would jump to about $1 trillion. The man who already holds the title of the world’s richest person would effectively become the first to cross a threshold that once sounded like science fiction.

Musk is not only the richest man in the world. He is also one of the most influential, controversial and unpredictable figures of the modern era. He leads the space company SpaceX, electric vehicle maker Tesla, the X network, formerly Twitter, and the artificial intelligence company xAI. At the same time, in recent years he has become an influential political actor, one capable of moving markets, triggering international storms and generating headlines almost daily.

His path began in Pretoria, South Africa, where he was born in 1971. Even as a child, he showed an entrepreneurial streak. He and his brother sold homemade chocolate Easter eggs door to door, and at age 12 he developed and sold a computer game. He later described his childhood as difficult, marked by bullying at school and social difficulties. At the first opportunity, he left South Africa for Canada and later moved to the United States. He studied economics and physics at the University of Pennsylvania, but dropped out of Stanford’s graduate program to found technology companies in the midst of the internet bubble.

The first major success came with PayPal, which was sold in 2002 to eBay for $1.5 billion. Instead of enjoying his newfound wealth, Musk wagered nearly all his money on two ventures that at the time seemed especially risky, the space company SpaceX and the electric car company Tesla. More than once, both companies appeared to be on the verge of collapse, but in the end they became the main growth engines of his fortune. He later bought Twitter for $44 billion, renamed it X and set himself the goal of turning it into an “everything app.” At the same time, he founded xAI after parting ways with OpenAI, where he had been an investor and partner in its early days.

“He is driven mainly by instinct,” journalist Chris Stokel-Walker said of him. “I’m never entirely convinced he knows what he wants to do tomorrow.”

In recent years, his activity has expanded into the political arena as well. For years he portrayed himself as “politically moderate” and “independent,” and even said he voted for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. But in the 2024 election he became one of Donald Trump’s most prominent supporters, donated to his campaign and became one of the figures most closely identified with him. He was later appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, but the alliance between the two ended in a public clash that included accusations and insults exchanged on social media.

Alongside his business successes, Musk has also drawn plenty of criticism. The Twitter acquisition, the company’s decline in value, clashes with regulators, political statements and allegations of rising hate speech on the platform have made him a particularly polarizing figure. Analysts have even linked his political involvement to Tesla’s drop in sales during 2025, after some customers turned away from the company.

Behind the empire stands a man who describes himself as a workaholic. He is the father of 14 children, has been divorced three times, and twice from the same woman, the British actress Talulah Riley. His first wife, Justine Musk, wrote that even before he became rich, “he was not a man who takes no for an answer.” According to her, “the drive to compete and dominate, which made him so successful in business, did not disappear magically when he came home.”

Musk himself is well aware of his controversial image. “If you wrote down my sins, I would sound like the worst person on Earth,” he said in 2022. “But if you put them next to the things I’ve done right, it works out much better.”

Tonight, as investors focus on SpaceX’s listing, the future of the company will not be the only thing at stake. If forecasts are realized, Musk will come closer than anyone in history to the $1 trillion mark, and perhaps even surpass it, adding another chapter to the life story of the man who turned himself from a young entrepreneur in South Africa into the world’s richest person.