Elon Musk has become the world's first ever trillionaire following the initial public offering (IPO) of his rocket company SpaceX. The IPO on Wall Street added nearly $870 billion to Mr Musk's wealth. He has amassed almost $290 billion from Tesla. He also has eye-watering equity in X, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. Musk is now worth more than the world's next four richest individuals combined. The bulk of Musk's unfathomable wealth is tied up in stock holdings across these business ventures, rather than in cash. SpaceX's IPO was the largest in history, raising $75 billion. It surpassed the previous record of $29.4 billion set by the oil company Aramco in 2019.

Elon Musk is a super-entrepreneur. He made his initial fortune by helping to create PayPal. That netted him about $176 million, which he used to start SpaceX in 2002, and invest in Tesla. SpaceX pioneered the reuse of rocket boosters and now dominates the space travel industry. It accounted for more than half of all rocket launches last year. The company also has 10,000 Starlink satellites in orbit. Musk's aspiration is to "make life multiplanetary". He wants anyone to be able to travel to space. At the IPO, he said: "Whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the Moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond." He added: "Not just a few astronauts, I mean literally you."