How Elon Musk Made His Money: His Journey from Selling Video Games to Becoming the World’s Richest Person

Elon Musk A visionary entrepreneur and social media sensation Elon Musk has an estimated net worth of about $435 billion, making him the richest person in the world right now. The billionaire, who was born in South Africa, has transformed some sectors, including electric cars, internet payments, and space exploration. However, how did Musk become wealthy? A closer look at his transformation from a struggling businessman to a tech tycoon may be seen here.

Early Life and Education

Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, on June 28, 1971, and showed an early interest in creativity and technology. He created and sold the video game Blastar for $500 when he was twelve years old. To evade South Africa’s mandatory military service, he relocated to Canada in 1988. He first attended Queen’s University before moving to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with degrees in economics and physics.

First Ventures: Zip2 and PayPal

When Musk co-founded Zip2, an online city guide that assisted newspapers in creating digital directories and maps, his business career took off in the 1990s. When Zip2 was purchased by Compaq in 1999 for $307 million, Musk received $22 million for his ownership part.
Musk chose to reinvest his profits in the online banking startup X.com rather than accepting a settlement. Digital payments were revolutionized when X.com evolved into PayPal. Musk made about $165 million when eBay paid $1.5 billion to acquire PayPal in 2002.

SpaceX: Revolutionizing Space Travel

Musk established SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) in 2002 to lower the cost of space travel. SpaceX proved its talents in 2008 when it was awarded a large NASA contract, despite early failures and several unsuccessful rocket launches. SpaceX is a space technology leader today, having pioneered interplanetary travel with the Starship mission and launched reusable rockets.

Tesla: The Electric Vehicle Giant

Despite not being the initial founder of Tesla, Musk rose to become its biggest investor and became its CEO in 2008. Under his direction, Tesla’s high-performance electric cars upended the auto industry. As the company’s shares surged, Musk became a multibillionaire. The main source of his enormous wealth is still his ownership of Tesla.

Diversifying Investments: SolarCity, The Boring Company, and Neuralink

Beyond Tesla and SpaceX, Musk expanded his ventures:

SolarCity was a solar energy company that Tesla purchased in 2016 to lower the cost of renewable energy. Musk aimed to establish a sustainable ecosystem that integrated solar energy and energy storage technologies with electric automobiles by incorporating SolarCity into Tesla’s energy business.

The Boring Company was established in 2016 to reduce urban traffic congestion by building underground transit tubes. By creating high-speed underground transit networks like the Las Vegas Loop, it seeks to transform urban mobility by lowering dependency on conventional roads and easing traffic issues.

To improve human cognitive capacities, Neuralink was founded in 2017 and creates brain-machine interfaces. To help people with neurological impairments communicate and regain lost motor functions, the business is developing implanted brain chips.

Acquiring Twitter and Rebranding to X

Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in 2022 and rebranded it as X. His goal was to turn the platform into a multipurpose “everything app” that integrated AI-powered features, social networking, and money.

Net Worth and Financial Growth

The stock market’s volatility, which is mostly related to Tesla’s valuation, causes Musk’s wealth to vary. His net worth peaked in early 2025 at $447 billion, according to Bloomberg, driven by the rise in SpaceX’s valuation and Tesla’s stock price. His financial empire keeps growing thanks to his investments in robots, artificial intelligence, and space exploration.

Elon Musk’s ascent to fame is evidence of his inventiveness, risk-taking attitude, and unwavering pursuit of lofty objectives. Musk’s journey from selling a modest video game as a teenager to running multibillion-dollar corporations highlights his impact on the direction of space exploration, transportation, and technology. Even if his fortune is based on the stock prices of his firms, it nevertheless makes him one of the most significant businessmen in history.