The Pretoria boy worth more than South Africa’s GDP

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria and his personal wealth is now worth more than the entirety of South Africa’s Gross Domestic Product.

Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index and Forbes both rank Musk as comfortably the richest person in the world, with the companies estimating his wealth at $426 billion (R8 trillion) and $416 billion (R7.9 trillion), respectively.

The latest full-year GDP figures showed that South Africa’s GDP only totalled $377.8 billion (R7.1 trillion) USD in 2023.

Estimates from the IMF predict that South Africa’s GDP will total roughly $403 billion (R7.5 trillion) in 2024.

Bloomberg noted that Musk is currently the CEO of the world’s most valuable carmaker Tesla. The Austin-based company sells electric cars and home solar batteries.

He is also the CEO of SpaceX, a rocket manufacturer that resupplies NASA.

SpaceX also operates the telco provider Starlink, a satellite internet company that provides coverage to over 100 countries and territories.

Musk also owns the social networking company X, which he rebranded from Twitter.

Musk also has stakes in startups Neuralink, xAI and The Boring Company.

Musk was born into a wealthy family in Pretoria with an engineering father and a nutritionist mother from Canada.

Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and Pretoria Boys High School, as well as a short stint at the University of Pretoria.

He received his Canadian passport from his mother and went to college at Queen’s University in Ontario.

He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where he got degrees in physics and economics. After graduating, he enrolled at Stanford University in California but dropped out early.

He created his first business an online publishing platform called Zip2 in 1995 and sold it in 1999 for over $300 million.

He then reinvested these funds to start X.com, an online payment system, not to be confused with his current social media site.

He would merge that company into what would eventually become PayPal, an e-commerce giant that was later sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

His next project was SpaceX in 2002 and he then became an early investor in Tesla in 2003 before taking over as CEO.

Tesla went public in 2010, the same year it launched its first-ever sports car.

He was also involved in SolarCity, a provider of solar power systems, which was made public in 2012 and bought by Tesla in 2016.

Musk became the world’s richest person for the first time in January 2021 – a year after Tesla became the most valuable carmaker in July 2020.

In 2022, Musk also made a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter Inc. Despite Musk trying to walk out of the deal, he eventually purchased the social media site in October 2022.

Bloomberg noted that X/Twitter’s value has since fallen by about 71% based on the carrying value assigned by investor Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund in their November 2024 filing.

In recent weeks, Musk’s value has skyrocketed, with many believing that his close connection with US President-Elect Donald Trump will give his companies an edge.

Musk and South Africa

Musk and his companies have been notably absent from South Africa, with Tesla cars not sold in the country.

Musk claimed that import duties in South Africa are super high, meaning that it doesn’t make sense for the company to come to South Africa.

When it comes to Starlink, the company has not received approval from the country’s regulators.

However, reports indicate that President Cyril Ramaphosa and Elon Musk are discussing ways to allow Starlink’s high-speed Internet to operate legally in South Africa, with the government changing laws.

Musk would then invest in areas such as battery production for Tesla.

Read: The woman looking after South Africa’s biggest retailer – worth R175 billion