American entrepreneur Elon Musk has become the first person in the world to surpass $800 billion in net worth, Forbes reports.
This happened after his company, SpaceX, acquired xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup that developed the chatbot Grok. According to Forbes, the deal increased Musk’s fortune by $84 billion, bringing it to a record $852 billion.
Before the deal, Musk owned about 42% of SpaceX, worth $336 billion, and about 49% of xAI, valued at $122 billion.
After the merger of the two companies, Forbes estimates that Musk now controls 43% of the new entity, valued at $542 billion. Thus, SpaceX has become the entrepreneur’s most valuable asset.
In addition, Musk owns 12% of Tesla’s shares, valued at $178 billion, and also has options on the company’s shares for another $124 billion.
As Forbes notes, this is the second time in less than a year that Musk’s companies have merged: in March last year, he announced the merger of xAI and the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Today, Musk’s fortune exceeds the net worth of the second-richest person in the world, Google co-founder Larry Page, by $578 billion. Page’s fortune is estimated at $ 281 billion. This means that Musk has about the same amount left to become the world’s first trillionaire.