There has always been a notion that some of the wealthiest men in the world have enough money to end world hunger and have enough left over to get their groceries at the end of the week – Elon Musk is one of those lucky guys. He has managed to secure a wealth that equates to $244.2 billion – a mere $40 billion more than the next richest man, Jeff Bezos. The two have danced between being the richest man alive.

Recently, Elon Musk challenged everyone who questioned why the richest people alive don’t end world hunger by saying he would end it by donating $6 billion. When you consider his total current net worth of over $240 billion, you can understand why he wouldn’t be bothered about making such a suggestion. The question is, how did he get so rich? Let’s explore.

His Early Wealth

Elon Musk came from an average family without wealth – and he moved to the US to study because the education system was far better than in his home country of South Africa. His early wealth began as he coded and sold his own video game to a development company for $500 – back in those days, that was a lot of money. 

He then developed Zip2 as the rise of the internet unfolded, and some years later, he sold the company for $300 million. That same year, he used his wealth to co-found Bank X – a platform that merged with Confinity in 2000 to form the hugely popular PayPal that we know today. In 2002, eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. 

From then on, Elon has made a series of excellent and well-calculated decisions – like buying into Tesla and founding SpaceX – that’s made him into the wealthiest business tycoon we know today. 

He’s The Crypto Trading King

Well, he’s more so the crypto trading influencer king rather than the king of trading himself. In fact, one of the three cryptocurrencies he’s admitted to investing in is Dogecoin. His reasoning behind this is that when conversing with people on the production line at SpaceX, he realized many of them had small investments in Dogecoin. They aren’t financial experts – therefore, Musk dubbed Dogecoin as the ‘people’s crypto’ and invested in it.

Most recently – Musk’s unspoken ruling over cryptocurrency was evident after he tweeted a picture of his new Shiba puppy. Many took this as a sign to invest in the SHIBA cryptocurrency, and the value shot up, which meant many people got rich quickly – but temporarily. As soon as he admitted he didn’t own any SHIBA crypto, it became overbought, and the value plummeted. The only crypto Musk owns are Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin.

For the crypto he does own, he’ll have huge shares in, but realistically these shares will only equal a small amount of his net worth. 

Tesla and SpaceX

The bulk of his fortune comes from his 23% share in Tesla. Tesla is a huge company that supplies electric cars to consumers and other manufacturers. Recently, Musk added more than $36 to his wealth after a 12.7% spike in Tesla shares after Hertz announced they wanted 100,000 vehicles to create an electrical rental fleet.

You could argue that there has never been a better time to be Elon Musk. Companies like Mercedes and Volkswagen have pledged to have an all-electrical fleet within the next 20 years and will likely harness technology Tesla sells to them. Plus, you can bet that other rental companies will follow in the footsteps of Hertz – inevitably adding to Musk’s wealth in the coming years as the shift towards electric cars grows.

Space X is another venture that some experts are now saying may make Musk a trillionaire. Space X is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for space travel – Musk’s ultimate goal is to create reusable rockets that transport people and cargo to Mars and beyond. Even coming close to that would spark massive investments that would easily push Musk into the trillionaire territory. 

The company is already making huge strides by creating rockets that land and relaunch themselves – something many thought wouldn’t be possible in our lifetime.

His Relatively Normal Lifestyle

Considering he has all the money in the world to buy whatever he wants, Musk lives a relatively normal lifestyle. In recent years, he sold many of his mansions and has instead chosen to resort to the simple man’s life. He lives in a condo in Texas close to the Space X base and lives a relatively simple lifestyle. 

Musk sees no reason to have luxurious things. Musk will instead invest his money back into the businesses he’s built – especially SpaceX, as this is most promising for his future – to grow his wealth. It’s for that reason that he is the wealthiest man alive. 

Elon Musk has many valuable lessons about business and where to invest money. He has grown his wealth from self-teaching code and learning to buy and sell. His wealth could end world hunger, and he’s serious about doing it.