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How Musk Gained $150 Billion in One Week · Elon Musk Podcast

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  Something interesting happened the other day.
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  That means 45 cent of you are subscribed.
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  And I really do appreciate your support.
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  But the other 55 are awesome. But I'm going to favor.
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  Could you please hit the subscribe button?
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  It'll take you one second. I'm going to promise you 10
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  years of this podcast for free, no pay walls.
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  give you 10 years of this show for free.
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  it for 10 more. And the only way that we can
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  continue doing this is with your support.
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  So one second of your time to hit the subscribe button right
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  now would help this show tremendously.
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  Thank you so much. Elon Musk just became the first
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  human being in history worth $700 billion.
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  According to the Forbes Billionaires Index, Musk's net
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  worth surged to $749 billion late on Friday after the
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  Delaware Supreme Court restored his 2018 Tesla pay package.
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  That package was recently valued at $56 billion, but today it's
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  worth $139 billion. Four days earlier, Musk had
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  crossed another threshold, first person ever worth $600 billion.
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  In the span of one week, Musk added roughly $150 billion to
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  his personal fortune. This is more than most countries
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  produce in a year. So how did this happen, and what
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  does it tell us about where wealth is actually going now?
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  The answer involves illegal ruling, a pending SpaceX FPO,
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  and a series of wealth milestones that no one else has
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  come close to touching. Today, we're going to walk
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  through the court decision, the SpaceX valuation, how Musk
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  stacks up against other billionaires on Earth, and what
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  comes next on the path to a trillion.
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  We'll be right into that after this very short break.
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  Now, the Delaware Supreme Court ruling dropped on Friday,
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  December 19th, and it changed everything.
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  The court reversed a lower court decision that had voided Musk's
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  2018 CEO compensation package from Tesla, and the 2018 deal
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  gave Musk options to buy another 304,000,000 Tesla shares at a
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  heavily discounted price. The package was tied to 12
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  performance milestones, and Musk hit every single one of those.
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  When the package was granted, Tesla was worth around 60
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  billion. Today, Tesla's market cap sits
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  at 1.6 trillion, so options granted when the stock was at
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  one point exercise when the stock has grown more than
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  twentyfold. The original $56 billion package
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  is now worth 139 billion, based on Friday's closing price.
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  Now, a lower court had thrown out that package in January
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  2024, and the judge called it unfathomable and said the Tesla
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  board's approval process was flawed because Musk controlled
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  the board. The shareholders voted twice to
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  ratify the deal anyway, and the lower court rejected the
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  argument, too. But on Friday, Delaware's
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  highest court said the remedy went too far.
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  We're sending the entire package, left.
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  Musk uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six
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  years, and the Supreme Court restored the package in full and
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  awarded Tesla $1.00 in nominal damages, $1.00 That is a penalty
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  for what the lower court called a flawed process.
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  Now. The ruling came just four days
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  after Musk crossed the $600 billion mark for the first time,
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  and the milestone was driven by something else entirely, SpaceX.
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  Now the company hit a $800 billion valuation in an insider
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  share sale, making it the most valuable private company in the
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  world. Musk owns roughly 42% of SpaceX,
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  and that stake alone is worth more than $330 billion.
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  Spacex's valuation doubled from 400 billion in July to 800
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  billion in December. So in 1/4, Musk's SpaceX
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  holdings added over $160 billion to his net worth.
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  Now here is how Musk's wealth compares to everyone else.
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  Larry Page, the Co founder of Google, is the second richest
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  person on earth. His net worth is around $252
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  billion. Musk is worth nearly 500 billion
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  more than Page now. That gap is larger than the
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  entire fortunes of most billionaires.
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  Musk is now worth more than the second, third and 4th richest
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  person combined. Larry Page at 252 billion, Larry
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  Ellison at 243 billion and Bezos at 239 billion together total
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  roughly 734 billion. Musk is at about 749 billion.
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  He has effectively lapped the field.
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  Earlier this year, Oracle Co founder Larry Ellison briefly
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  knocked Musk from the top spot when Oracle stock surged.
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  That lasted about one whole day. No one else is even close
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  anymore, and the trajectory is worth tracking.
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  When Bloomberg first added Musk to his billionaire index in
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  2013, he was about $4.8 billion. It's still an absurd amount of
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  money, but it is pocket change by his current standards.
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  He had $100 billion in August of 2020.
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  That was driven by Tesla's surging stock price as the
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  company finally cracked. Mass production and demand
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  outstrip supply, and by September 2021, he reached $200
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  billion. Two months later, 300 billion.
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  In December 2024, he crossed 400 billion, boosted in part by
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  optimism around a second Trump administration, and by October
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  2025, five, 100 billion, now 700 billion.
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  He added 100 billion per year on average, but the last 200
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  billion came in weeks. In the acceleration is insane.
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  Each new milestone come faster than last one.
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  To put $748 billion in context, consider what the number
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  actually represents. It is larger than the annual GDP
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  of countries like Switzerland, Poland, or Argentina.
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  It exceeds the entire market capitalization of most publicly
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  traded companies. Only a handful of corporations
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  on Earth are worth more than Musk's net worth.
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  Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Amazon, and also Saudi
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  Aramco. That is roughly the complete
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  list. But Musk as an individual is
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  worth more than Coca-Cola, Disney, and Netflix combined.
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  That's just one guy. It's crazy and it's difficult to
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  comprehend all of this. Now everyone's asking if Musk
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  will become the first trillionaire.
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  So the math is mathing. And it says he could.
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  SpaceX is reportedly preparing for an IPO in 2026.
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  Any potential valuation of 1.4 trillion.
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  If that happens and Musk retains his 42% stake, his SpaceX
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  holdings alone would be worth over $600 billion.
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  Just before counting Tesla, Before counting XAI, before
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  counting any other assets, His AI startup XAI just closed the
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  funding route of $230 billion. Musk owns roughly 1/3 of that
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  company. Between SpaceX, Tesla, and XAI,
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  Musk's empire spans EVs, rockets, satellite Internet, and
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  artificial intelligence. No other individual holds
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  comparable stakes across many high growth sectors.
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  Simultaneously, there's also a new Tesla pay package.
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  In November 2025, shareholders approved a compensation plan
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  that could pay Musk up to a trillion dollars over the next
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  10 years. That's the largest corporate pay
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  package ever approved, and the package consists of 12 tranches
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  of shares that vest if Tesla hit certain milestones.
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  Those targets start at a $2 trillion valuation and scale all
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  the way up to 8.5 trillion. For reference, Tesla currently
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  trades around 1.6 trillion. Hitting the top target would
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  require Tesla to grow more than five times over the next 10
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  years. And if Musk hits those targets,
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  his ownership stake in Tesla would grow from about 12% to
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  roughly 25%. That would give him
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  significantly more voting power over the company's direction
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  now. Musk is now closer to becoming a
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  trillionaire than he is to being caught by the second richest
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  person on the planet. The gap between Musk and Larry
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  Page is $500 billion. Musk would never let that go,
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  and he would need to gain another 250 billion to hit a
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  trillion. It's possible it's half the
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  distance. Given the trajectory, it could
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  happen within the next year or two.
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  So with all that money and Musk and all the other billionaires,
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  what does it even mean? It depends on your perspective.
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  Musk has said publicly that he needs the money to fund the Mars
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  missions with Starship. He's laid it out repeatedly.
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  Human consciousness is good. Earth will eventually become
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  uninhabitable. Humanity needs to become multi
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  planetary and that requires vast amounts of capital.
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  If you accept that framing then accumulation of a trillion
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  dollars is just a means to an end.
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  But Mars colonization remains decades away at best.
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  Because we're going to go there and send things there first.
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  We have to put down the infrastructure 1st and we
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  haven't even done that on the moon yet, which is close by.
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  That's a day away, a few days away.
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  And Mars is the nine month jump from Earth to Mars.
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  We have no technology tested on the surface of Mars for people
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  to live there yet, so it's going to be a while.
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  And the Martian soil cannot support food production without
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  major intervention. Their engineering problems that
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  money alone does not solve. We have to figure stuff out and
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  the timeline keeps slipping away.
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  Musk once predicted crude missions to Mars by 2024.
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  Now he's saying late twenty 20s at the earliest.
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  So five, you know, four or five years, somewhere around there.
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  There's also the simpler observation worth making.
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  Here. We're watching wealth
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  concentrate at a scale never before seen in human history.
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  One person now holds assets worth more than the GDP of most
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  nations. The gap between Musk and the
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  second richest person on Earth is larger than the entire
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  fortunes of most billionaires. And whether that level of
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  concentration is good or bad or neutral is a question for
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  economists and philosophers. What is undeniable is that it's
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  happening and it's accelerating. Private market stock options and
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  tech valuations have created a wealth engine with no historical
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  parallel. Now, the court ruling that
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  triggered this largest surge is also worth sitting with.
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  Lower court found that Musk controlled Tesla's board and
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  that the board failed to disclose material information to
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  shareholders. Supreme Court did not dispute
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  those findings, simply said that throwing out the entire pay
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  package was too harsh. So Musk keeps his 139 trillion
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  or $139 billion in options Tesla plays, pays $1.00 in damages,
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  and the question of whether concentrated corporate power
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  produces fair outcomes remains unanswered.
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  Now Musk responded to the court ruling on X.
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  He said thank you for your unwavering support.
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  Now Tesla stock barely moved in after hours trading because of
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  this in the market had apparently priced in the
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  possibility and for Musk, the world's first $700 billion, man,
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  the next milestone is $1 trillion.
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