Elon Musk Loses Trillionaire Status 12 Days After Breaking Record
Elon Musk has lost his trillionaire status less than two weeks after becoming the first person in history to surpass the $1 trillion mark, as a decline in SpaceX’s valuation and new restrictions on his Tesla holdings eroded his fortune.
According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth fell to an estimated $962 billion as of Tuesday, while the Bloomberg Billionaires Index pegged his wealth at $957 billion on Wednesday.
The SpaceX founder crossed the trillion-dollar threshold on June 12 after the rocket company’s public listing boosted his fortune to an estimated $1.1 trillion. His wealth peaked at a record $1.45 trillion on June 16 when SpaceX shares surged 40 percent to an all-time high.
However, the rally proved short-lived. SpaceX shares have since fallen 31 percent from their peak, wiping hundreds of billions of dollars from Musk’s net worth and pushing him back below the trillion-dollar mark.
The decline was compounded by changes to Musk’s Tesla holdings. Last week, he surrendered $7.1 billion worth of Tesla stock to cover the exercise cost of stock options awarded under his 2018 CEO compensation package.
The package was initially voided by a Delaware court in 2024 before being reinstated by the Delaware Supreme Court in 2025. Following the ruling, Tesla and Musk agreed to convert the exercised options into restricted stock that will vest only if he remains with the company until January 2028 as chief executive or in a senior operational role.
As a result, Forbes excluded about $116 billion worth of restricted Tesla shares—equivalent to roughly an 8 percent stake—from its calculation of Musk’s net worth, in line with its treatment of unvested restricted stock held by other billionaires.
The restricted shares could vest earlier if Tesla undergoes a change of control. Speculation has grown over a potential SpaceX acquisition of Tesla, which could trigger an accelerated vesting clause in Musk’s agreement.
Despite the recent decline, SpaceX remains Musk’s most valuable asset. He owns approximately 4.8 billion shares in the company worth about $744 billion, as well as 350 million stock options valued at roughly $52 billion. Together, the holdings give him a 38 percent stake in the aerospace company worth an estimated $796 billion.
The scale of Musk’s SpaceX ownership means even a modest rebound in the company’s share price could return him to trillionaire status.
Forbes’ estimate does not include additional performance-based stock awards that could significantly increase Musk’s ownership stakes in both SpaceX and Tesla. To unlock those awards, Musk would need to meet ambitious targets, including raising the companies’ market capitalisations to multi-trillion-dollar levels and advancing plans for a permanent human settlement on Mars.
Even after the decline, Musk remains the world’s richest person by a wide margin. His estimated fortune is more than three times that of the second-richest individual, Google co-founder Larry Page, whose net worth stands at about $284 billion.
