Elon Musk Just Became The First, And Only Member of '$400 Billion Club'

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has reached a new milestone: he has become the first person in history to have a net worth of 400 billion US dollars.

The factors contributing to Musk's wealth increase of over $60 billion in a single day include: on one hand, the United States November CPI data, which met expectations, strengthened the market's expectation that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week, and pushed up the share prices of US star technology stocks, including Tesla.

Tesla's share price closed at a historical high on Wednesday, reaching 424.77 US dollars. As the largest individual shareholder of Tesla, the rise in share prices has once again brought Musk an enormous amount of wealth. Documents filed with regulators show that Musk holds over 411 million shares of Tesla and about 304 million performance-based stock options - that is to say, Tesla's increase of 23.78 US dollars last night alone added at least 10 billion US dollars to Musk's fortune.

Since Trump's official election victory, the share price of this electric vehicle manufacturer has risen by nearly 70%, with the market value increasing by over 56 billion US dollars, because Musk's close relationship with the former president in recent months has led investors to believe that the world's richest man can exert more influence in the Trump administration and establish a deregulation era beneficial to his companies.

In addition to Tesla, Musk's rocket company SpaceX also saw a surge in valuation yesterday. An internal email from the company shows that SpaceX and its investors have agreed to purchase up to 1.25 billion US dollars worth of insider shares, with a price of 185 US dollars per share - compared to the share price of 112 US dollars in September this year, this indicates that SpaceX's valuation has risen by about 65% in three months. According to the latest stock trading prices, this space exploration technology company's market value has exceeded 350 billion US dollars, becoming the world's most valuable private startup.

Furthermore, Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has successfully raised 5 billion US dollars in the latest round of financing, bringing the company's valuation to 50 billion US dollars.

In recent years, due to the fluctuations in Tesla's share price, Musk's position as the world's richest man has also experienced some volatility, but he has been in the top spot since May, and Trump's election victory has further widened the gap between him and the world's other billionaires: according to the US media's billionaire index, since November 5th, the world's richest man's fortune has increased by about 136 billion US dollars, and his total wealth added in 2024 has reached 218 billion US dollars, far ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is currently ranked second, in both total wealth and wealth growth.