Joe Yates
It has been a rollercoaster of a week for Elon Musk, and breaking a huge milestone probably won't lift his mood.
Just six days ago (September 26), the Tesla CEO was named in the latest release of the Epstein files - alongside co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel, and President Donald Trump's former strategist, Steve Bannon.
It should be noted that despite his name appearing in the files, it does not mean he is accused of any wrongdoing - and Musk strongly refutes claims that he has visited the infamous island associated with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Now, on Tuesday, the SpaceX founder reportedly broke into the $500 billion club - something that no one has ever managed to do.
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According to Forbes, his fortune - made from his involvement in Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal and xAI - rocketed by around $10 billion.
He now sits a pretty $150 billion above his nearest 'competitor', the second richest person on the planet - Larry Ellison - the co-founder of Oracle.
However, despite reaching over $500 billion earlier this week, Forbes' 'real-time billionaire list' puts Musk at $499.1 billion - with Ellison at $350.7 billion. That is a whole lot of money, baby!
Meanwhile, Bloomberg claims the South African has a net worth of $470 billion, with Ellison at $349 billion, but who's counting, ay?
Interestingly, the gap between second and first hasn't always been so large.
With fluctuating numbers, the world's richest person can change very suddenly, and that's exactly what happened in September after Larry Ellison overtook Musk for top spot, although only briefly.
Ellison's wealth hit a whopping $393 billion, trumping Musk's $385 billion, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Tech company Oracle saw shares jumped a whopping 40 percent, which improved Ellison's already impressive net worth given the company makes up a significant part of the 81-year-old's wealth.
The American businessman and entrepreneur allegedly jumped by $101 billion after his company announced quarterly results had surpassed previous expectations, which allowed him to overtake the Tesla CEO.
Just in August, Musk broke into the $400 billion club - meaning in just two months his net worth has swelled by $100 billion.
That was partly to do with a huge pay packet he received from the electric car firm that he runs.
It was described as a 'good faith' payment to Musk after the previous $56 billion bonus deal struck in 2018 was rescinded in December 2024, under the orders of Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick.