How Elon Musk will take humanity to the stars with his net worth

Elon Musk is currently a man with a mission. When he is not creating havoc in the cryptocurrency world with Bitcoin and Dogecoin, he is actively working to take humanity to the stars, or at least to Mars. And the $271 billion net worth of Elon Musk plays a big role in it.

His place in the super-rich community is predominantly due to Tesla’s stock price soaring high for a few weeks. And since Musk owns 20% of the company, it’s no surprise that his personal wealth had skyrocketed as well. However, even after losing the top spot, Musk doesn’t plan on slowing down when it comes to his philanthropic activities. 

How Elon Musk spends his net worth

At present, most of Musk’s wealth lies in his company, Tesla’s, stock. In 2018, he announced a plan on how he wanted to distribute his wealth. He claimed to have sold $100 million of his stocks and donated the proceeds to charity. His idea was to do this every few years and start donating larger sums of money when Tesla becomes a stable entity in about twenty years. 

His charitable organization, Musk Foundation, was founded by him in 2002. The organization’s website, however, is as simple as they come. It bears no other information other than the name of the organization and the five branches it donates money to. 

Musk has also pledged to give away half of his wealth to charitable causes by signing the Giving Pledge. Although founded in 2002, the Musk Foundation had not seen much money flow through it till 2016 when Musk donated about $250 million of his Tesla stock to it. He has also donated $10 million each to Open AI and the Future of Life Institute. 

But even all of these big numbers put together don’t make a dent in his total net worth. And being among the richest people in the world doesn’t sit well with many others such as politicians and activists, especially when it seems like you’re not donating to the community. But Elon Musk has a counterargument for them. 

Elon Musk and the future of his net worth

According to Musk, his donations are meant for his vision for the future. He has already said that his significant contributions to charity will come only after about 20 years when tesla is in a steady state. That seems to be in time for his futuristic vision of creating a self-sustaining living space for one million humans on Mars. 

Musk says that his wealth is entirely directed at solving problems for humanity. In his own words, half of his wealth is for solving problems here on earth and the other half to set up a livable city on Mars as a way of sustaining the continuance of life on a planet other than Earth. 

He said in 2019 that it could cost anywhere between $100 billion to $1 trillion to create the city on Mars. The cost was arrived at by factoring in the cost of sending one million tons to Mars at $100,000 per ton. He added that the entire Mars project would cost around half to one percent of the world’s GDP (gross domestic product). Considering that the global GDP in 2018 was around $86 trillion, we’re looking at a cost of around $400 billion to $900 billion. 

No penchant for the finer things in life

Musk seems to be a bit different from most of the other super-rich folks. He doesn’t have a taste for the usual expensive super-rich splurges like yachts and other such purchases. Musk is also selling off his homes. He doesn’t show off his material wealth or possessions either.

Musk says that he is saving up to be able to do more for humanity. He wants to be able to contribute as much as possible to the cost of building the city on Mars. 

For someone who is the richest person on earth, it may not seem like Elon Musk is doing a lot in terms of charity. But his plan for the future and contributing towards sustaining life do seem to be the steps in the right direction. And signing a pledge to give away half of your wealth does say something about his philanthropic mindset. 

Want to read more about the good rich people do with their net worth, including Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, read our blogs.