Elon Musk entered the history books on Friday as the world’s first trillionaire, a development that places Africa at the center of one of the most significant wealth-creation stories of the modern era, even though the fortune itself was largely built outside the continent.
The South Africa-born entrepreneur crossed the $1 trillion net worth threshold after the Nasdaq debut of SpaceX, the rocket and satellite company he founded in 2002.
SpaceX shares opened at $150, above their IPO price of $135, pushing the company’s valuation close to $2 trillion and adding hundreds of billions of dollars to Musk’s personal fortune.
According to Forbes estimates, Musk’s net worth rose to $1.1 trillion, making him the first person in history to become a trillionaire.
Musk’s $1.1 trillion fortune places him in a category of his own. His wealth is nearly four times that of Google co-founder Larry Page, worth $294.1 billion, and more than four times the $271.3 billion fortune of fellow Google co-founder Sergey Brin, both of whom remain among the world’s wealthiest centibillionaires.
