Elon Musk’s SpaceX stake is now worth more than his Tesla shares on paper
Elon Musk has more priorities than ever — and Tesla isn’t the overwhelming majority of his wealth like it used to be.
For years, Elon Musk’s staggering wealth was primarily anchored on the value of his stake in the world’s leading electric vehicle maker, with his wider forays into space, social media, AI, tunnels, solar panels, neurotechnology, and more often funded by the enormous collateral provided by his Tesla equity.
But Tesla has now fallen for five trading sessions in a row, which means the value of Musk’s current Tesla shares — of which he owns nearly 411 million — has dropped to just shy of $135 billion. His 42% stake in SpaceX, which was recently valued at some $350 billion, is theoretically worth $147 billion.
That comparison has many flaws: it doesn’t include the value of Musk’s 304 million exercisable stock options from his disputed 2018 Tesla compensation package, and SpaceX shares aren’t as liquid as Tesla’s given that it’s a private company, for starters. But it still reflects a broader shift, particularly in the context of the increasingly long list of demands on Musk’s time.
Musk have a clone
Here are just a few of the things Musk is spending time on:
In recent weeks, he’s taken up his responsibilities, as undefined as they are, at the Department of Government Efficiency.
He’s the chairman and CTO of X Corp. (formerly Twitter).
He’s the CEO of Tesla.
He’s the CEO of SpaceX.
He owns Neuralink.
He “leads the team” at xAI.
He owns tunnel venture The Boring Company.
He’s building multiple company towns.
This week, The Wall Street Journal reported he was part of a group of bidders trying to buy OpenAI, something one analyst called “a distraction from Tesla’s core challenges.”
And that’s without mentioning his nonprofessional time sinks.
Musk also claims to be a top gamer in “Diablo IV,” something gamers say would’ve required him to play “all day, every day.”
And analysis from The Economist confirms what anyone who’s spent any time on his social media platform will know already: that he has tweeted almost nonstop since he acquired X in 2022.
Finally, the billionaire, who has fathered at least 12 children of his own, also spends time railing against falling birth rates and urging others to “have many more children.”
Time for Tesla
Musk has always had a broad range of commercial interests, and though there have been calls in the past for him to step down from his CEO role at Tesla, he’s always managed to stay in the hot seat — perhaps in part because shareholders knew that Musk would devote enough time to the company given its importance to his personal wealth.
But if Tesla’s sales continue to drop, the stock continues to slide, and SpaceX continues on its rocket-like trajectory, there may come a time when Musk thinks something along the lines of: hang on, I own ~42% of this space company that’s booming, and ~13% of this EV maker that’s in a price war with stiff competition... maybe I’ll focus on SpaceX or my political endeavors today.
