Will Elon Musk be richest person on December 31?

Prediction markets put the probability at 90%: Will Elon Musk be richest person on December 31. Currently, markets see this as likely (90% YES). Here’s how much Tesla paid Elon Musk last year.

What’s Happening

Tesla disclosed in a regulatory filing on April 30, 2026 that Elon Musk's 2025 executive compensation totaled approximately $158.4 billion, the first annual figure tallied after shareholders approved his record stock-based award roughly six months earlier. The package, supported by more than 75% of voting shares, was structured to keep Musk focused on Tesla for the foreseeable future and brings his stake in the electric-vehicle maker to roughly 20.3%. The filing also disclosed that Tesla generated over half a billion dollars in 2025 from selling products to other Musk-controlled entities, including SpaceX and the artificial intelligence startup xAI. [Bloomberg, Apr 30]

The compensation disclosure underscores the scale of the wealth gap separating Musk from other contenders in the running for whether Elon Musk be richest person on December 31. MarketWatch reported on May 1, 2026 that Musk's pay was roughly 2.5 million times the median Tesla employee's earnings in 2025, with the bulk of the figure stemming from the stock-based component of the long-term plan rather than cash. The Los Angeles Times noted the package followed shareholder approval of an unprecedented $1 trillion long-term stock award, designed to vest against operational and market-cap milestones across more than a decade. The structure ties Musk's net worth closely to Tesla's share-price trajectory through year-end. [LA Times, May 5]

A BBC report on May 6, 2026 placed Musk's current net worth at over three-quarters of a trillion dollars, citing the figure in coverage of his $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI now before a California court. The litigation against Sam Altman's company introduces a near-term legal variable, though courtroom outcomes are unlikely to resolve before year-end. The central question of whether Elon Musk be richest person on December 31 hinges primarily on Tesla's share price relative to holdings of rivals such as LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg. With the gap between Musk and the next-ranked billionaire currently measured in hundreds of billions of dollars, equity-market volatility through the remaining months of 2026 represents the principal risk to the standing. [BBC, May 6]

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