Elon Musk’s net worth jumped $61 billion in a single day, Forbes reported. The Friday rally put his fortune at $979.7 billion, back within reach of $1 trillion. Here is what moved it, and why the number swings so much.
SpaceX shares rose more than 7% on Friday after the company completed several successful launches in 24 hours, trading at $158.84 in the afternoon. Tesla stock rose about 5%, to $371.32, after the company posted 486,532 third-quarter deliveries, Forbes reported. That beat analysts’ expectations and gave investors more hope that Tesla will avoid a third straight year of declines.
As of 2:15 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list had Musk up 6.64% from Thursday. He remains No. 1. Jeff Bezos is No. 2 at an estimated $370.7 billion, a gap of $600.5 billion.
A number that moves fast
Musk briefly became the world’s first trillionaire on June 12, after SpaceX went public at $150 a share, and his net worth peaked at $1.45 trillion. He lost that title later in June after SpaceX stock fell 31%, Forbes reported.
He regained it briefly on June 29 and lost it again on July 1. In July his net worth fell below $700 billion as SpaceX stock dropped 50% from its June 16 high. Forbes also leaves out $116 billion of his Tesla stock, which an April agreement with the company restricted.
Most of his fortune is tied to SpaceX and, to a lesser extent, Tesla, so his wealth moves with two stock prices. A good or bad day for those two stocks can add or erase tens of billions of dollars of his estimated net worth. Forbes’ figures are estimates based on share prices, not cash in the bank. We also looked at what Musk says makes him happy in our earlier story.
