{"id":863519,"date":"2026-06-12T13:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863519"},"modified":"2026-06-12T13:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:45:22","slug":"south-african-born-titan-becomes-the-worlds-first-trillionaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/863519\/south-african-born-titan-becomes-the-worlds-first-trillionaire\/","title":{"rendered":"South African-born titan becomes the world’s first trillionaire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Few business leaders have been as deeply embedded in popular culture as Elon Musk, the ambitious entrepreneur who has become a central figure in internet culture and amassed a fortune that has \u200bmade him the world’s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when concerns about inequality are high and public attitudes toward the ultra-wealthy have soured, Musk has managed to retain a loyal following despite his stratospheric net worth \u200cand without the folksy persona that endeared other tycoons such as Warren Buffett to the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While admirers view Musk’s no-filter style as part of his appeal, critics have accused him of wielding oligarch-like power, raised concerns about governance at his companies and objected to his increasingly partisan political interventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, SpaceX, the sprawling rocket, satellite and AI company that together with electric-car maker Tesla form the centre of Musk’s empire, raised a record $75 billion in its initial public offering on Thursday, highlighting investor enthusiasm for his business ventures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the share sale, Forbes pegged his net \u200bworth at roughly $780 billion, far ahead of the man next in line, Alphabet co-founder Larry Page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The second richest person has been hovering around $300 billion, so about less than one-third of what Musk can potentially be worth \u200btomorrow,” said Matt Durot, deputy editor at Forbes Wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And only one other person, (Oracle founder) Larry Ellison, has ever been worth $400 billion.\u201d Most of Musk’s wealth now rests with SpaceX, where \u2060he holds a stake worth roughly $866 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with Tesla and the rest of his properties, his net worth will exceed $1.1 trillion when the stock begins trading on Friday, according to Reuters calculations based on company filings. The tally includes \u200bstock components that would vest over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk became a household name through Tesla and SpaceX before expanding his influence with the $44-billion acquisition of social media platform Twitter in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal gave him a direct channel to hundreds of millions of \u200busers and made him a prominent voice on issues ranging from politics and immigration to government spending and free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His move into politics, particularly his role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency last year, has been among his most contentious ventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political fallout coincided with weakening Tesla sales in several international markets in 2025 as protests and consumer boycotts targeted the electric vehicle maker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Elon Premium <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Musk, 54, was born in Pretoria, South Africa, to a Canadian mother and South African father. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took \u200bover as Tesla’s CEO in 2008 with the conviction that electric vehicles could combine high performance with software-driven features, helping redefine the global automotive industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some auto-industry watchers say Tesla\u2019s success \u2013 and its trillion-dollar-plus market cap \u2013 helped prod traditional automakers \u200bto pivot to electric cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many investors are betting he can repeat the feat in space and artificial intelligence. Yet SpaceX remains cash-hungry, and much of the company’s valuation rests on technologies that may take years or decades to become commercially viable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk \u200chas co-founded \u2060five other companies, including tunnelling startup The Boring Company and brain implant maker Neuralink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As CEO of Tesla, Musk has courted controversy and praise in equal measure. He is credited with turning Tesla into the world’s most valuable automaker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Executives at legacy automakers dismissed the threat for years, sceptical that a startup car company could figure out how to mass-produce electric vehicles profitably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe renewed the world’s respect for American ingenuity in automotive engineering,\u201d said Bob Lutz, a former General Motors vice chairman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Tesla has faced legal challenges and shareholder concerns tied to its storied CEO, particularly his 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk’s influence has become so pervasive that market observers have dubbed the network of businesses around him the “Muskonomy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The phenomenon has given \u200brise to what some investors call the “Elon premium,” a valuation \u200bboost driven as much by faith in Musk’s vision as \u2060by traditional financial metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Much like Tesla, SpaceX is a bet on Elon Musk,” said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A market cap of $1.5 trillion-$2 trillion would certainly throw all traditional valuation methodologies out the window, and is instead best characterised as the ‘Elon Musk premium.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richer than the richest <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The concentration of influence around a single entrepreneur \u200bhas amplified concerns about corporate governance, conflicts of interest and the risks of tying company fortunes too closely to one individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, Musk has turned clashes with \u200bregulators, billionaires, short sellers, journalists and \u2060media organisations, including Reuters, into recurring public battles that often unfolded on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk’s alliance with Trump followed a familiar pattern. After helping bankroll Trump’s return to the White House and serving in a senior advisory role through the administration’s DOGE initiative, Musk became one of the president’s closest corporate allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship later fractured amid disagreements over policy and spending, spilling into a public feud. Though the two have since struck a more conciliatory tone, their falling-out highlighted the increasingly blurred lines between Musk’s business empire \u2060and political ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet \u200bfor many investors, concerns about Musk’s often unconventional behaviour are outweighed by his track record of turning ambitious ideas into some of the \u200bworld’s most valuable companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Elon is the Edison of our time,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said during a recent conversation with Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The banker, a former adversary of Musk in a prolonged legal battle, has since become an admirer. Dimon told CNBC last year that the pair had “hugged it out,” \u200band hailed Musk as “our Einstein.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reported by Manya Saini and Niket Nishant for Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX IPO has made South African-born Elon Musk officially the world’s first trillionaire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":863525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[2662,853,2660],"class_list":["post-863519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-elon-musk","tag-south-africa","tag-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863527,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863519\/revisions\/863527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}