Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAINo, has been named the wealthiest person on Earth with a net worth of $334 billion as of November 22, 2024. He has been appointed as a co-chair of a new advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency, by President Donald Trump, but there are concerns about potential conflicts of interest due to his companies' ties to the federal government. Elon Musk has criticized the decision to deny nearly $900 million of rural broadband subsidies to SpaceX's satellite internet business, Starlink, in 2022. Musk owns an estimated 54% of artificial intelligence startup xAI and has donated $406 million to charitable causes over his lifetime, which is less than 1% of his net worth.
During a rally for Donald Trump in Folsom, Pennsylvania in October 2024, Elon Musk expressed his belief that overregulation is a problem and that a "bonfire of nonsense regulations" would be epic. Musk's largest donations to date include $100 million to fund a new STEM-focused school in Texas and $55 million to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital for cancer research. In 2010, Elon Musk took Tesla public, marking the first initial public offering of a U.S. automotive company in 50 years. Musk acquired SolarCity in 2016, leading to investor lawsuits that were resolved in his favor in April 2022.
Elon Musk owns approximately 74% of Twitter, which he purchased in October 2022 and later changed its name to X in July. Musk lost his title as the world's richest person in April 2023 due to a decline in Tesla's stock value but regained it in June 2023 after a rebound in the stock price. In November, Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were named co-heads of a new advisory committee called the Department of Government Efficiency, which will focus on regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings.