It’s the fifth consecutive year at the top of The Forbes 400 for the wealthiest billionaire in the U.S.—and the world.
Elon Musk more than doubled his fortune over the past 12 months to rank No. 1 on the annual Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people for the fifth straight year, worth an estimated $908 billion. But the ride was anything but smooth for the SpaceX and Tesla chief, who briefly became the world’s first trillionaire (and saw his fortune top out at $1.3 trillion) after his rocketmaker went public in June.
SpaceX’s shares have since come back to earth after soaring into orbit post-IPO, falling 34% from their peak to close trading for The Forbes 400 just 10% above their initial offering price, implying a market cap of nearly $2 trillion. But that was still enough to help Musk, who owns 38% of the company (including stock options), gain a record $480 billion over the past year— smashing the record $184 billion gain he posted for the 2025 Forbes 400, when he was worth $428 billion.
That has allowed Musk to further tighten his grip on the title of America’s richest person. He’s now $530 billion richer than the nation’s No. 2, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (estimated fortune: $378 billion), who has returned to the second spot after falling to No. 4 on last year’s ranking. Bezos’ climb is thanks to the soaring valuation of his own rocketmaker, Blue Origin, which Forbes estimates is now worth $130 billion. Bezos owns 100% of that still-private company, which Forbes had previously valued at around $29 billion (the amount Bezos has invested in Blue Origin, according to estimates by analysts at Space Capital). Last year’s runner-up, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, meanwhile, dropped to No. 7, as his net worth fell by $72 billion, to an estimated $204 billion—a staggering $704 billion less than Musk.
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Back in 2022, when Musk overtook Bezos to top The Forbes 400 for the first time, Tesla stock and options still accounted for nearly three-quarters of Musk’s $251 billion fortune. The electric vehicle maker has been on a bumpy ride ever since, though its stock is still up nearly 25% versus four years ago (and 6% over the past 12 months). Musk, however, has seen his stake in the company (including stock options) fall from 24% to 11%, after exercising Tesla stock options and selling $23 billion of stock to buy Twitter in late 2022. Forbes also removed the rest of Musk’s Tesla stock options (worth around $100 billion) from his fortune after they became restricted stock under a new agreement signed by Musk in April that requires him to remain at Tesla as CEO (or in a similar role) through January 2028. One way to get around that restriction: if SpaceX acquires Tesla, which many now see as a realistic possibility.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time one of Musk’s companies bought another. SpaceX scooped up Musk’s artificial intelligence and social media company xAI in February in a deal that valued the combined business at $1.25 trillion. He had already merged Twitter into xAI nearly a year earlier.
Even Musk’s boring companies are booming. That includes Boring Company, Musk’s tunnelmaking startup, which raised funds from private investors at a $23 billion valuation less than a week after Forbes locked in net worths for this year’s Forbes 400 list, quickly adding another $10 billion to Musk’s fortune, though he’s still short of the $1 trillion mark—for now.
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