Elon Musk has reached a level of wealth no human being has ever attained—and he is now within striking distance of becoming the world’s first trillionaire.

Earlier this month, SpaceX completed a tender offer valuing the private rocket company at $800 billion, double its valuation just four months ago, according to investors who spoke with Forbes.

Musk owns an estimated 42% of SpaceX, increasing the value of his stake by $168 billion and lifting his total net worth to approximately $677 billion as of Monday afternoon.

That makes Musk the first person in history worth more than $600 billion. No one has ever reached $500 billion — or even reached half that wealth.

According to the latest Forbes billionaire rankings, after Elon Musk the next three richest people in the world are: Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, with an estimated net worth of around $216 billion; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, with about $215 billion; and fourth-richest Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, with a net worth of roughly $192 billion.

SpaceX alone is now Musk’s most valuable asset, with his stake worth roughly $336 billion. The company is targeting an IPO as early as 2026, which investors say could value SpaceX at $1.5 trillion. At that level, Musk would almost certainly become the world’s first trillionaire — even without factoring in any of his other businesses.

Musk’s second-largest asset remains Tesla. His 12% stake in the electric-vehicle maker is worth about $197 billion, excluding controversial stock options from his 2018 CEO compensation package that were voided by a Delaware judge in January 2024.

Forbes currently discounts the value of those options by 50%, estimating them at $69 billion, pending Musk’s appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Even if Musk ultimately loses that appeal, Tesla could still provide a separate — and potentially even larger — path to trillionaire status.

In November, Tesla shareholders approved a new, unprecedented compensation plan that could award Musk up to $1 trillion in additional stock if Tesla meets a series of extreme long-term targets.

Those “Mars shot” milestones include increasing Tesla’s market capitalization more than eightfold over the next decade.

Taken together, Musk controls or leads companies operating at scales never before seen under a single individual: a dominant electric-vehicle manufacturer, the world’s most valuable private aerospace firm, and multiple other ventures spanning AI, robotics, infrastructure, and space exploration.

If SpaceX reaches its projected IPO valuation — or if Tesla achieves even a portion of its long-term targets — Musk could become a trillionaire as soon as the mid-to-late 2020s, a milestone no one else is remotely close to reaching.

In modern financial history, there is no parallel.