Elon Musk made his fortune primarily through business ownership, not salary. He received about $22 million when Compaq bought Zip2 in 1999 and later nearly $170 million from eBay’s acquisition of PayPal. He then reinvested substantial amounts of that capital…

Last fact-checked: July 12, 2026. Elon Musk’s fortune changes quickly because most of it is tied to SpaceX, Tesla and other ownership stakes. Every per-second figure in this article is a dated estimate, not a fixed paycheck. Elon Musk does…