(NewsNation) — Elon Musk has been at the forefront of the space and technology industries for some time; and with good reason.

The X owner has, in recent years, become a greater influence in popular culture as an advocate for free speech on his social media platform.

The richest man in the world has also endorsed former President Donald Trump and reportedly pledged $45 million monthly to a political action committee supporting the Republican nominee.

Elon Musk’s net worth

According to Forbes’ real-time billionaires list, Musk has a net worth of $241.3 billion, owing to his Tesla and Space X companies.

Bloomberg’s Aug. 29 data reports Musk’s net worth is $234 billion. Meanwhile, NewsBytes’ data from Thursday says his financial worth is $239.3 million.

This has him well ahead of Jeff Bezos ($194B), Bernard Arnault and his family ($189.7B), and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg ($179.2B).

How has Elon Musk made his money?

Musk may be known for his recent ventures, but one of his first successes came through Zip2, a software company comprised of city guides.

Co-founded with his brother, Kimbal, the company was acquired for $307 million in 1999. At this time, he also co-founded a direct bank which ultimately became part of PayPal.

The now-famed money management entity sold for $1.5 billion in 2002, which led to Musk creating SpaceX in the same year.

More than two decades on, SpaceX was reported to be worth more than $210 billion earlier this year.

When did Elon Musk become a billionaire?

The X owner first appeared on Forbes’ billionaire list in 2012 with a net worth of $2 billion. Forbes reported that his net worth in October 2011 was $680 million.

Musk has a business portfolio that includes Tesla, X, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, and Tesla Energy.

In addition, the Tesla CEO is opening a Montessori in Bastrop, Texas during the fall. Ad Astra, is a nonprofit with a focus on science, technology, engineering, and math for children ages 3-9, per the school’s website. 

“Ad Astra’s mission is to foster curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking in the next generation of problem solvers and builders,” the school’s website read.

Long into being a billionaire, Musk purchased X (formerly known as X) for $44 billion in October 2022.

Elon Musk as a billionaire

Walter Isaacson followed Musk for three years as part of a biography and detailed that Musk was not motivated by generating extreme wealth.

“There are a lot of weird things and demons and drives that motivate him, but money isn’t number one,” Isaacson told CNBC last year.

“I think that if he wanted to make money, he wouldn’t have bought Twitter. He wouldn’t have sent rockets to Mars, and he probably wouldn’t do electric vehicles,” he added.

At a Tesla owners’ Silicon Valley meeting, Musk was asked why he is still working despite his financial situation.

“The more we can expand the scope and scale of consciousness, the better we can understand what questions to ask about the answer that is the universe,” he said.