Picture this: It’s 2013. You’re scrolling through your feed, and Elon Musk—then mostly known as the guy who made electric cars cool and rockets that sometimes landed—is on a stage. He’s grinning like a kid who just got away with something. Someone hands him a mock check for a billion dollars. Actually, it was a $1.1 billion check from Google, for a company called Tesla that was barely turning a profit. He holds it up, cameras flash, and you think: “Wait, that guy is actually rich now?” Because in 2013, that was still a wild idea. Let’s rewind.
Back then, Elon Musk’s net worth was a moving target. Forbes estimated it at around $6.7 billion. That’s a lot, sure, but compare it to today’s $200+ billion and it feels like pocket change. In 2013, he wasn’t the “world’s richest man” yet—he was just that quirky billionaire who slept on factory floors and tweeted weird memes. You following so far?
The Rocket Phase and the Car Gamble
Here’s the crazy part: In 2013, Tesla was still seen as a hobby. The Model S had just launched, and people called it a “niche toy for rich tree-huggers.” (Oh, how wrong they were.) The stock was volatile—one day up 20%, the next day down 15%. Musk’s net worth was basically a rollercoaster tied to that stock. He owned about 22% of Tesla, so if the stock sneezed, he sneezed billions.
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Meanwhile, SpaceX was his other obsession. In 2013, it had just successfully launched a satellite for the first time, but nobody was counting it as a “fortune.” The company was private, valued at maybe $2 billion. Musk owned roughly 70% of it. That alone put him at $1.4 billion—but nobody really knew because SpaceX wasn’t public. Classic Musk: hiding money in rockets.
Where the Money Came From (Hint: Not His Stash)
You think he had a piggy bank? Nope. In 2013, most of his wealth was paper money. He wasn’t sitting on a mountain of cash. He famously said he only kept about $200,000 in liquid assets—a laughably small number for someone worth billions. He even borrowed money from friends to pay rent. I’m serious. He was living in a tiny home near the Tesla factory, surviving on peanut butter sandwiches.
Elon Musk vs Jeff Bezos - Net Worth (2013-2023) - YouTube
His real wealth came from Tesla stock options. In 2013, Tesla shares were trading around $25 (split-adjusted). By end of 2013, they hit $50. That meant Musk’s stake was worth roughly $3.5 billion. Plus, he had a stake in SolarCity, his cousin’s solar panel company, worth about $500 million. Take a breath—that’s a lot of zeros.
The Paypal Ghost in the Room
Let’s not forget where he got his first millions: PayPal. In 2002, eBay bought it for $1.5 billion. Musk, as the biggest shareholder, walked away with $180 million after taxes. By 2013, that money was long gone—poured into SpaceX and Tesla. So his 2013 net worth wasn’t “old money.” It was future money that hadn’t arrived yet. Literally a gamble on himself.
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Compare that to other billionaires in 2013: Bill Gates had $72 billion. Warren Buffett had $58 billion. Musk’s $6.7 billion? It was cute. He wasn’t even in the top 200 richest people globally. But here’s the twist: his net worth was growing at a ridiculous pace. By the end of 2013, Tesla shares had tripled from that February low. His net worth jumped to nearly $10 billion by some counts. Then 2014 happened. And 2015. And well… you know the rest.
The Irony of Being “Poor” Rich
This is the part I love: In 2013, if you had asked Elon Musk how much he was worth, he’d probably shrug and say, “I don’t know, I’m broke.” And he meant it. He was cash-poor and asset-rich. He had to sell his house in 2013 to raise money. Imagine being worth billions and having to sell your home to keep your companies alive. That’s the Elon of 2013: a man with a vision, a fed-up expression, and a net worth that was volatile as a SpaceX rocket launch.
So what’s the takeaway? In 2013, Elon Musk wasn’t a billions-a-night guy. He was a crazy-dream-that-might-implode guy. His net worth was a fragile castle built on electric cars that people mocked and rockets that exploded (a lot). If you’d bought $1000 of Tesla stock in 2013, today you’d have over $100,000. But back then? Nobody was sure. Not even him. And that’s the beauty of it: In 2013, Elon Musk was just a very rich man with a very risky plan. Now, he’s a very, very rich man with a plan that worked. Sometimes, the gamble pays off. But man, what a ride.
