How Elon Musk Made a Trillion Dollars

Summary

Podcast Summary: How Elon Musk Made a Trillion Dollars

Podcast: The Journal.
Episode Date: June 16, 2026
Hosts: Jessica Mendoza, Ryan Knutson
Guest: Teo Francis (WSJ executive pay reporter)

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Overview

This episode explores Elon Musk’s transformation into the world’s first trillionaire, following SpaceX’s historic IPO. It examines the unprecedented scale of his wealth, the sources that powered his fortune, the unique ways his wealth is structured, and what Musk’s path reveals about modern capitalism, power, and ambition.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. SpaceX IPO and Musk’s Trillionaire Status

• SpaceX’s public debut is described as possibly the most highly anticipated and expensive IPO ever, with shares opening at $150 each.
  • Quote: “SpaceX shares opened at a record $150 apiece.” — Jessica Mendoza [00:10]
• Musk’s stake in SpaceX pushed his net worth beyond $1 trillion.
  • Breakdown:
    • SpaceX stake: $820 billion
    • Tesla stake: $280 billion
    • Total: Over $1.1 trillion
  • Quote: “His stake in SpaceX now worth $820 billion ... his total net worth as we have it right now is over $1.1 trillion.” — Teo Francis [00:53]

2. The Challenge of Grasping Enormous Wealth

• The scale of Musk’s wealth is compared to national economies, not individuals or companies.
• Most can’t fathom what a trillion dollars means — even for a business reporter.
  • Quote: “We’re going to have to start using the ‘T’ … it’s a really remarkable moment in terms of individual wealth.” — Teo Francis [01:23]
• Everyday analogies are used to illustrate Musk’s fortune:
  • He could buy 2.4 million average U.S. homes (median price: $400,000).
    • Quote: “He could buy 2.4 million houses in the United States at the typical sale price.” — Teo Francis [04:52]
  • Could buy every NFL and NBA team and have $500 billion left over.
  • For Musk, passing up $97,000 is like the average person walking past a penny.
    • Quote: “If you make about $100,000 a year … that penny you might walk by … that’s the equivalent of $97,000 to Elon Musk.” — Teo Francis [05:39]

3. Musk’s Financial Journey: From Startups to Space

• Musk’s success is 30 years in the making:
  • Started in the ‘90s with Zip Tube (walkaway: $22 million) [06:17]
  • Founded an early online payments company that became part of PayPal ($100+ million in 2002) [06:24–06:33]
  • Early investor and later CEO of Tesla; pushed it to become the leading and most “sexy” electric vehicle brand [06:49–07:05]
  • Founded the Boring Company (underground tunnels, Las Vegas project) and Neuralink (brain-computer interface tech)
  • SpaceX: Financial engine is Starlink (satellite internet), but broader mission targets commercial spaceflight and ambitious Martian colonization [07:36–08:14]
• Cumulative effect: Investments in one venture often fueled advances in others (a "snowball" effect) [08:19]

4. The Historic Scale of Musk’s Wealth Compared to Others

• Musk has surpassed historical and current icons of wealth (Bezos, Ellison, Zuckerberg, Rockefeller).
  • Even combined, the biggest tech billionaire fortunes don’t match Musk’s [09:24]
• Musk’s wealth, like Rockefeller’s, is mostly “on paper”—tied up in company stock, not in cash [10:19]
  • Potential doesn’t equal liquidity; selling too much could depress share value

5. The Musk Mystique: Personality and Investor Belief

• Much of Musk’s companies’ value is linked to his persona and investors’ faith in his vision and ability to achieve “remarkable things” [11:16]
  • Quote: “A lot of his company’s value is tied up in his investors’ belief that he can do remarkable things... So, you know, he can’t just go selling.” — Teo Francis [11:16]
• Musk famously leveraged ownership across his companies (e.g., borrowing from SpaceX to buy Twitter) [11:50]

6. Control, Boards, and Pay Structures

• SpaceX vs. Tesla:
  • Tesla: Traditional public board structure, retail investor voting rights—but Musk says this limits his control [15:11]
  • SpaceX: Post-IPO, Musk retained 80% voting power, is CEO/Chairman, controls major corporate milestones [15:48]
    • Stock compensation is tightly tied to “pie in the sky” milestones—like putting 1M people on Mars or reaching extraordinary computing power [16:16]
    • But regardless of whether fantastical goals are met, Musk remains the world’s richest person [16:38]
      • Quote: “He’s still the richest man on the planet and ... he can still vote those shares that he will only get if he establishes a million person colony on Mars.” — Teo Francis [16:38]

7. What Does a Trillionaire Do? Scorekeepers and Spending

• For the ultra-wealthy, money becomes a scorecard more than something to spend
  • Some, like Gates and Buffett, plan to give fortunes away; others spend on luxuries, family, or new ventures [17:00]
• Musk’s achievement could inspire similar ambitions among other billionaires, but such opportunities are rare

8. Is Musk’s Road Replicable?

• Like Apple, Musk’s genius is less about invention, more about successful implementation at pivotal moments of change [18:07]
  • The market conditions that enabled Musk’s leap are not easily replicated; fortune required innovation and timing

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If people told me this was gonna happen, I was like, ‘man, you must be smoking some really good crack.’” — Teo Francis [00:40]
• “That penny you might walk by … that’s the equivalent of $97,000 to Elon Musk.” — Teo Francis [05:39]
• “Is it the companies or is it Musk or is it both? I think it has to be both, right?” — Teo Francis [13:45]
• “He can still vote those shares that he will only get if he establishes a million person colony on Mars.” — Teo Francis [16:38]
• “A lot of this money will not be spent … these are their scorecards.” — Teo Francis [17:00]
• “Was Musk the beneficiary of a unique or highly unusual set of circumstances …? That’s success, but it may not be the kind of opportunity that is available in every industry at every moment, for every company.” — Teo Francis [18:07]

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Timeline of Key Segments

• 00:10 – SpaceX IPO, Musk’s public address
• 00:53 – Breakdown of Musk’s trillion-dollar net worth
• 03:42 – Challenges relaying the true scale of his wealth
• 04:52 – Wealth comparisons and analogies
• 06:06 – Musk’s financial resume and career timeline
• 08:14 – Rocket launch SFX, symbol of Musk’s ambition
• 09:24 – Comparing Musk to other business titans
• 11:16 – The Musk mystique and interconnectedness of wealth
• 15:11 – Control and governance structures at Tesla vs. SpaceX
• 16:16 – Outlandish company goals (Mars colony, etc.)
• 17:00 – The “scorecard” mentality of the ultra-wealthy
• 18:07 – How unique or replicable is Musk’s path?

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Takeaways

• Musk’s fortune is not only staggering in absolute terms but also in its structure: inextricably tied to his companies’ perceived, almost mythic potential.
• His situation is both a function of his vision and a product of extraordinary timing and market context.
• The psychology of wealth at this level shifts from consumption to competition—an ever-escalating scoreboard for the elite.
• While Musk’s story may inspire imitators, the confluence of factors that enabled his rise is unlikely to repeat easily.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

When SpaceX went public on Friday, it kicked off the first day of trading for what might have been the most highly anticipated initial public offering in history. It was certainly the most expensive one. SpaceX shares opened at a record $150 apiece. In Texas, CEO Elon Musk stood in front of a video rockets launching and addressed investors.

[Teo Francis]

And let me tell you, if people had told me this was gonna happen, I was like, man, you must be

[Harvey AI Announcer]

smoking some really good crack.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But the IPO itself wasn't the only history made. Last week, SpaceX going public also made Musk the world's first trillionaire.

[Teo Francis]

His stake in SpaceX now worth $820 billion. You add in that Tesla stake worth about 280 billion and. And his total net worth as we have it right now is over $1.1 trillion. It's remarkable. It's clearly a watershed moment.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Our colleague Teo Francis covers executive pay. Why is this an important moment?

[Teo Francis]

It's pretty striking. You know, I do our annual ranking of executive pay, of CEO pay, and every year there's a few CEOs who make 100 million or more. 100 million, like that's a lot of money. And yet I have to remember to use an M and say million instead of B for billion. When you're talking about the wealth of people like Zuckerberg and Bezos and Ellison and of course, Musk, when we're going to have to start using the T, it's a really remarkable moment in terms of individual wealth. And I think the real question is, how far does it go?

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, June 16th. Coming up on the show, who wants to be a Trillionaire?

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[Jessica Mendoza]

Before the SpaceX IPO, before he was a trillionaire, you did the story where you tried to put into context just how wealthy Elon Musk is. Why is that such a difficult number to communicate?

[Teo Francis]

I mean, do we really understand how big a trillion dollars is? That's usually the kind of number that we talk about when we talk about economies, when we talk about GDP growth, not when we talk about companies. Even very few companies until recently even had a trillion dollar market capitalization, which means the total value of what investors think they're worth going forward. Only a handful of companies have reached that level, but now we're talking about an individual. And that's just totally new territory.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Right. It's hard to wrap your mind around that number, much less what it could mean for a single human being.

[Teo Francis]

Exactly.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So how did you wind up explaining it?

[Teo Francis]

I mean, the only thing you can do is compare it to other things, right? You could say, oh, a trillion is a thousand billion. But that doesn't really do much.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That doesn't help me, right?

[Teo Francis]

What's a billion? Right. So we decided we were gonna try to put it in the context of everyday things.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Okay.

[Teo Francis]

So just shy of a trillion dollars, where he was before the IPO, he could buy 2.4 million houses in the United States at the typical sale price at the beginning of this year.

[Jessica Mendoza]

For context, the median sale price for a house in the US in the first quarter of 2026 was about $400,000. So Musk could buy 2.4 million of those.

[Teo Francis]

I mean, that's just the beginning, right? He could also buy all the NFL and NBA teams, every one of them, and still have $500 billion left over.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Another way to think about it, imagine you see a penny on the street and don't bother picking it up. What would be the equivalent to that penny for Elon Musk?

[Teo Francis]

If you do the math on that, if you make about $100,000 a year, that penny you might walk by. That's the equivalent of $97,000 to Elon Musk.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And again, that was before the IPO. Musk's journey from startup guy to trillionaire spans about 30 years. Can you walk us through his financial resume? Like, where does this money come from?

[Teo Francis]

He started out in the mid-90s. He co founded a company that essentially was one of the dot com boom companies.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That company was called Zip Tube. And when it sold, Musk walked away with about $22 million.

[Teo Francis]

He then ended up creating and helping to found and run a payments company, one of the precursors to PayPal as we know it today.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Musk's payments company combined with PayPal making him more than $100 million in 2002. From there, he went on to found or back a variety of different ventures. He became an early investor in a small car company.

[Teo Francis]

There were times in Tesla's history where it looked like things were really struggling, but he took over Tesla and kind of set it in the direction that ended up making it the first really popular and arguably sexy electric car company.

[Jessica Mendoza]

He launched the Boring company with a promise to build underground tunnels for cars that would solve traffic problems.

[Teo Francis]

Elon Musk's Boring company today got the mayoral nod to dig deep a tunnel for a high speed trip from downtown Chicago to o' Hare Airport. The Boring Company twills tunnels. He sort of had this big vision of the hyperloop which was, you know, this idea that you could have very fast mass transit. And that does not seem to have a lot of traction at this point.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The Boring Company has struck agreements with a number of cities, though it's only completed one tunnel in Las Vegas. Musk also co founded neuralink, a startup that's trying to develop brain implant technology. And of course there's SpaceX. Though the company's financial engine is Starlink, a satellite Internet service, SpaceX promises to build towards commercial spaceflight.

[SpaceX Launch Announcer]

Space X just pulled off a test

[Jessica Mendoza]

launch of its latest starship mega rocket. So here's what it sounded like when

[SpaceX Launch Announcer]

it took off from the launch pad in south Texas.

[Jessica Mendoza]

By 2012, Musk had become a billionaire and his wealth kept growing.

[Teo Francis]

You can see how the value of some of his portfolio now lets him do things in other parts of his portfolio as well. And it's kind of a snowball. It's kind of a Snowball effect.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In 2021, Musk became the richest person in the world for the first time. You know, for a long time Musk was in that conversation along with people like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. But those other guys are like down in the, it's crazy to say, down in the $200 billion range. And Musk has, you know, clearly exploded beyond that. When and sort of how did that start to happen?

[Teo Francis]

I mean, some of this was just in the past year really. When we looked at American billionaires in late summer, early fall last year, he was ahead of the other big tech billionaires, but not by such a huge amount.

[Jessica Mendoza]

At the time his wealth was valued at $423 billion. It's more than doubled since at this

[Teo Francis]

point, you know, you can add up Bezos and Ellison and Zuckerberg's wealth, and it's still not Elon Musk's.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Is there a historic analog for this level of wealth for a single person? Like, does Elon Musk have more money now than like John D. Rockefeller did in his time?

[Teo Francis]

Yeah, I mean, you know, Rockefeller has for a century been sort of the icon of the individual wealthy man. Right. Musk overshadows Rockefeller in again, ways that are sort of hard to wrap your head around. Right. Because it's a different time. You know, any dollar figure you can put on John D. Rockefeller's wealth in 1937 is not a dollar figure that applies today.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But like Rockefeller, whose wealth was largely tied up in Standard Oil, a lot of Musk's wealth isn't liquid.

[Teo Francis]

Elon Musk's wealth is not cash. Elon Musk's wealth is almost all tied up in his companies. And some of that we can see directly with Tesla and now SpaceX. Some of it we can't altogether. I'll try to estimate his wealth outside his companies, about $100 billion, a little more. So that's a much smaller number. Obviously, it's still a very large number. To the extent that his money's tied up in his companies, you can't just go spend it. So, you know, these analogies we're making are analogies. They're not, oh, hey, he could actually go out and buy 2.4 million houses because once he starts selling shares, the market is going to notice.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's pretty common for many CEOs and founders. Why would people believe in and invest in your company when you're selling your shares? Matteo says it's an even more unique situation for Musk because of the cult of personality that's developed around him.

[Teo Francis]

Elon Musk is a very unusual case. A lot of his company's value is tied up in his investors belief that he can do remarkable things with these companies and that he can get these companies to do remarkable things. So, you know, he can't just go selling. Right. That would be a huge problem for his wealth. In addition for all the other shareholders,

[Jessica Mendoza]

because his wealth is largely tied up in his companies, Musk has made some deals that leverage those companies against each other. That's how he was able to buy Twitter in 2022, for example.

[Teo Francis]

So when Musk bought Twitter, he borrowed a billion dollars from SpaceX. So to buy a company. He borrowed a billion dollars from a company he owned. Now he paid it back very quickly. We don't know where he got the funds to pay it back. It could have been borrowing against something else like Neuralink or the Boring company. So you know, there is a certain amount of all of this is interconnected, at least as long as Musk is running it and as long as he owns significant stakes in it.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But with all that interconnectedness, where is the line between Musk and his companies? That's next.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

For many investors, Elon Musk is a visionary, and Musk has built a brand around that narrative driving a lot of the interest in his businesses.

[Teo Francis]

Is it the companies or is it Musk or is it both? I think it has to be both, right? I mean, you know, if Elon Musk didn't have the companies, probably people would back him to start companies if these companies were run by someone other than Elon Musk. Well, we saw a little bit of that in recent years when Tesla was very worried that Musk was not really paying enough attention to the company he was running. Doge he was getting into politics.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Musk spent lots of time campaigning for President Trump and later leading the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has also been focusing heavily on Xai, another venture of his that's since been rolled into SpaceX. All to say, Musk has at times had a lot on his plate, and Teo says that has rattled investors, like in 2024 when Tesla's shares dropped roughly 30%.

[Teo Francis]

So you do see these moments where his involvement comes into question, and that does weigh on the stock price. But it's the continuing confidence that investors have that he'll, he'll manage somehow. So even when there was worry about him not giving his all to Tesla, I mean, the stock didn't tank right? So either it's not all him or investors were pretty sure he'd come back around. Because after all, a lot of his wealth is tied up in Tesla.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Tesla has a more traditional business structure with an independent board of directors and voting rights for retail investors. But Musk has complained that this setup doesn't give him enough control and it's holding the company back.

[Teo Francis]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk threatening he needs more control of Tesla if the company's

[Windows 11 Announcer]

AI ambitions are going to be met.

[Teo Francis]

And it's very clear from the structure of SpaceX that he didn't want to make that mistake again. He wanted to make sure that he had control. So, I mean, he has control in so many ways, it's hard to wrap your head around. I've never seen anything like him.

[Jessica Mendoza]

After the SpaceX IPO, Musk held on to more than 80% of the company voting rights and he serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors. To signal to investors that he is locked in, Musk prefers to take pay packages and huge amounts of stock tied to specific milestones. At SpaceX, one of these outlandish goals is to put a million person colony on Mars.

[Teo Francis]

Another part of it is tied to having a really phenomenal amount of computing power in space. I mean, it's again one of these numbers that you can't really wrap your head around, but believe me, it is enormous. Either of those is at this point a pie in the sky goal.

[Jessica Mendoza]

At the same time though, if he never hits those goals, he's still the richest man on the planet by a lot of people.

[Teo Francis]

He's still the richest man on the planet and because of the way that SpaceX pay package was structured, he can still vote those shares that he will only get if he establishes a million person colony on Mars.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So Martian colony or not, Musk is the world's first trillionaire. What could that mean for other ultra wealthy people?

[Teo Francis]

So I've never had a billion dollars, much less same hundreds of billions. But I'm told that for people who make this kind of money, it's more about a scorecard than about what you can actually do with the money. A lot of this money will not be spent for billionaires. Plenty of billionaires, some like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, have said, I'm going to give essentially all of it away. Others are happy to spend it on super yachts or acquiring companies or you know, funding their kids business ventures or whatever. But, but in many ways these are their scorecards. That's the kind of thing that spurs competition. There is probably at least among some billionaires, a sense that, well, if he can do it, maybe I can too.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And I guess this is the question to ask here. How unique is Musk's situation? Like, has he cracked some code about how to manage money and make money that other mega rich people can try to follow themselves?

[Teo Francis]

You know, there's a sort of a trope about Apple that Apple doesn't necessarily invent a technology, but it puts that technology to use and to market in ways that are way more successful than anyone else. The ipod was the most successful, but not the first MP3 player. I think you can look at Elon Musk that way as well. In the sense that was Musk the beneficiary of a unique or highly unusual set of circumstances, right? Certain kinds of technological change don't happen very often. There was probably a point at which an American electric automaker is going to do really well, and it was Tesla. And that's not to take anything away from it. That's success, but it may not be the kind of opportunity that is available in every industry at every moment, for every company.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Tuesday, June 16th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode from Juliet Chung and Max R. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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