Investing

Elon Musk's Net Worth Drops $5 Billion, But It Doesn't Matter Because He Owns Outer Space Now

Austin Smith

Published: January 22, 2025 1:24 pm

24/7 Wall St. Key Points:

• The decline in Elon’s net worth is related to Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) share decline, likely related to profit-taking and early 2025 rebalancing.
• Musk’s riches are enhanced by SpaceX, with a private valuation: ~$130 billion, and other projects including X.AI and Neuralink
• Musk’s near-monopoly on rocket launches helps him to be dominant in the private space sector, therefore enabling him to profit from notable market and government demand.
• You don’t need Musk’s billions to retire rich though. See if you’re ahead, or behind on your retirement plans in as little as 3 minutes. Click here to take a brief quiz and learn more.

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Transcript:

[00:00:04] Douglas McIntyre: so everybody’s best friend, Elon Musk’s net worth dropped 5 billion last week. but for him, It’s a, it’s a rounding error. So if you look at Tesla, which is most of the reason for this, what have you seen in the last two or three weeks with Tesla that would tend to make the stock slide some?

[00:00:36] Lee Jackson: I think the biggest thing is, is as we got out of, the old trading year 2024, I think a lot of people as in the market sold off to start the new year. A lot of people were like, well, I got to take some chips off the table. And I think that could have been a big reason. For the decline because after the, the post bounce for the stock was huge. I mean, it was like a full year’s move and, you know, eight weeks. So I think that could have been part of it.

[00:01:08] Douglas McIntyre: Well, it’s not like he’s been digging that bad. I’m looking at the Bloomberg billionaire index. So he’s down to 439 billion. Sorry. The number two person is Jeff Bezos at 240 billion. So even with the drop of 5 billion that Mr. Musk had, he’s still 200 billion ahead of, of the next person. So part of,

[00:01:37] Lee Jackson: I don’t, I don’t think. I don’t think Bezos is going to catch up anytime soon, and like I think you pointed out in the past, his other investments that are not publicly traded stocks continue to go up as well.

[00:01:51] Douglas McIntyre: Well, so you know, you’ve got Tesla with a market cap of about 1.4 trillion dollars. He also owns a quarter or more depending on how you make the calculation of SpaceX. SpaceX did around, I think employees selling out to, you know, to make some money on their, their equity because it’s not publicly traded. So at 130 billion, you figure if he owns, 40 percent of that.

[00:02:24] Douglas McIntyre: He’s got some shares and non voting shares, but still, you know, then he owns one of the big privately held AI companies, XAI, he’s got about half of that,

[00:02:37] Lee Jackson: Right?

[00:02:38] Douglas McIntyre: that did around recently. I think it was at 30 billion. Now open AI, which is competitor did around it over. A hundred billion and they’re, you know, there are four or five of these privately held AI companies and they just keep doing Rounds because their bankers are saying it’s going to be an up round.

[00:02:59] Douglas McIntyre: It’s going to be an up round. So, so he’s got that. And then he’s got Neuralink and you know, he’s got a few other things, but, but ultimately,

[00:03:10] Lee Jackson: want them to do rounds, and they better not do them too far because what happens is, if they ever decide to take it public, they’re And they can’t get the valuation they want because they, it’s too expensive. The private equity guys, you know,

[00:03:23] Douglas McIntyre: but as we watch his net worth going into next year, most of the movements are going to be determined by Tesla, unless we see a massive up round in one of these things, which, which look, if you said to me 10 years ago, that the entire rocket business, rocket to space business would be controlled by one company, let alone one company founded by Elon Musk.

[00:03:46] Douglas McIntyre: If you said that to me, I’d say, I’ll, I’ll take you a thousand to one on that. But guess what? He owns outer space now, period. There are virtually no other people who can send up rockets. Those, those poor astronauts, NASA sent up who are stuck in that space station. He’s the only person who can rescue you.

[00:04:09] Douglas McIntyre: He’s the only person who can put a satellite in space for you. So I can see his net net worth rising because of, of another round in SpaceX

[00:04:19] Lee Jackson: I’m sure go over 500 at some point. And the thing that’s so remarkable is if you had said that to me 10 or 12 years ago, I would have said, you mean the PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) guy, that guy, he’s going to control space. And sure enough, there he is.

[00:04:35] Douglas McIntyre: and a control memory,