Elon Musk: My Wealth Comes from Holding Shares in SpaceX and Tesla
Elon Musk replied that his wealth comes solely from holding shares in SpaceX and Tesla. The more the companies build, the higher the valuation rises, benefiting all shareholders. He referred to Bernie Sanders as a taker who has never built anything and stated that such people consistently demand from builders.
This reply was posted under John Stossel's post. Stossel noted that Musk has become a trillionaire again and argued that those advocating for government-imposed limits on his wealth are economically misguided, as the government tends to waste funds, while SpaceX and Tesla create what people want. Musk did not respond to the terms of the cap proposal, instead explaining the numbers as shareholdings.
He did not provide the percentage of shares held, cash balance, or tax amounts in this post. The rise was described by him as a change in valuation brought about by building, with beneficiaries referred to as all shareholders, not just himself. He separated takers from builders, placing Sanders on the taker side.
This same distinction has been used by him before. In response to claims that Musk's wealth exceeds that of half of American households, he wrote that he holds shares in SpaceX and Tesla, not a pile of cash. As companies do more useful things, their value rises according to expected uses, benefiting shareholders along the way, including most retirement plans. This time, he replaced retirement plans with all shareholders and targeted Sanders.
The post did not accompany any sell-offs, buybacks, or new rounds of financing. SpaceX remains a private company, while Tesla is a public company. The price of private equity comes from financing rounds and transfers, while the price of public equity comes from public trading. The book wealth on both sides will fluctuate with valuations and cannot be extracted as cash.
This is a valuation debate, not a sell-off. The buyers are shareholders and funds continuing to bid for building capacity, while the sellers frame wealth caps or tax increases as political proposals for redistribution. The beneficiaries are internal shareholders who can increase their book net worth without selling when share prices rise, while the pressured side is the proposal to count unrealized equity appreciation as taxable or limited wealth. Stocks have not been converted to cash, and the proposals have not yet materialized.
Source: Public Information
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Musk's shareholdings come from two phases of operation, not a salary. He founded SpaceX in 2002 and led the investment in Tesla in 2004, subsequently becoming CEO. In 2008, both companies were close to running out of funds, and he split the remaining funds from selling PayPal between the two. Tesla went public in 2010. A compensation plan passed in Delaware in 2020 tied large-scale options to market value and profit milestones, which was overturned by the Delaware Chancery Court in 2024, and the shareholders approved it again in 2024, with litigation still ongoing. Therefore, wealth figures have been repeatedly counted and excluded based on options.
The form of money is equity, not deposits. The price of SpaceX is formed through primary market financing and transfers between employees and investors, and external retirement accounts cannot buy full exposure. The price of Tesla is formed on NASDAQ, with index funds and retirement plans holding by weight. Musk describes the rise as an increase in expected uses from building, equating to passing the fluctuations of book net worth to the next round of orders and deliveries, rather than to allocated cash. If a cap were placed on unrealized appreciation, execution would either force stock sales or tax unsold shares.
In contrast, since 2016, Sanders has repeatedly listed the Walton family, Bezos, and Musk's net worth as evidence of wealth concentration, and in 2021, there was a discussion in the U.S. about taxing unrealized appreciation of billionaires, which ultimately was not written into effective law. The industry position is not that companies lack orders, but that private valuations and public valuations are simultaneously used as personal wealth. The trillion figure used by Stossel is the total market value, while Musk uses shareholdings.
Structurally, the transfer of pricing power has not been completed. Company value is determined by buyers bidding for future uses, and personal wealth rankings multiply that bid by the shareholding percentage. Political proposals aim to treat this product as a withdrawable stock. The premise for withdrawal is that equity can be converted to cash at the listed price. Private companies do not have this market, and once a major shareholder sells at the listed price, the price itself will change. Building increases the assets that can be bid on, not cash that has already been allocated.
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Wealth on the list is mostly not cash.
Unrealized appreciation changes price once sold.
Those bidding for building are shareholders, not wealth rankings.