SpaceX filing reveals smaller debt burden, boosting Musk's net worth

Elon Musk’s net worth surged by $45 billion to a record $722 billion on Thursday after a SpaceX IPO prospectus clarified his personal debt. The disclosure forced the Bloomberg Billionaires Index to revise its calculations, removing a massive liability previously tied to the CEO's vast stake in the rocket company.

Bloomberg analysts previously assumed that 57% of Musk’s SpaceX shares served as collateral for personal loans, an estimate based on comments Musk made in 2019. However, the new filing reveals that as of May 1, he had pledged only 238,000 of his 849.5 million shares—less than 0.3% of his total holdings—to secure personal indebtedness. This discrepancy prompted the immediate removal of the $45 billion liability from his ledger.

With this adjustment, Musk has now gained $103 billion this year, a sum exceeding the combined wealth of Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. His fortune is driven by the meteoric rise of his two core ventures: Tesla, which now holds a $1.3 trillion market cap, and SpaceX, which has seen its valuation climb roughly 20-fold since early 2020. As he retains a 50% stake in the aerospace firm and roughly 11% in the EV manufacturer, his total wealth now eclipses the individual market valuations of corporate giants like Exxon Mobil, Visa, and Intel.