Elon Musk’s empire could be about to expand in a major way with his proposed buyout of Twitter. After acquiring over 9% of the company earlier this year, it seems he has far bigger plans for the social media giant.
Despite the staggering amount of money on the table, it is a drop in the ocean of Musk's expansive net worth.
His exorbitant caused a backlash earlier this week when Musk said "almost anyone" could afford a $100,000 SpaceX ticket.
During a conversation with head of TED, Chris Anderson, Musk asserted that people can simply "work and save up," to buy a ticket to the red planet of Mars.
For now, his plans remains focused on social media, but it is hard to believe he has the time to run Twitter, especially with so many other projects under his belt.
He already oversees multiple ventures that range from space exploration to unlocking the potential of the human mind.
The future is very much now with Musk’s corporations, and here is a complete list of all the companies he owns.
What is Elon Musk’s net worth?
Elon Musk is the richest man alive, so it is no surprise that his net worth is an incomprehensible volume of money.
His net worth stands at around $260 billion (£198.9 billion), but this could be about to change.
If he is successful in his buyout of Twitter, he will lose just over $40billion (£30bn) of his own money.
His net worth will then depend on Twitter's value, which skyrocketed immediately after Musk made his historic offer. Similarly, his electric car company Tesla just ballooned in stock.
It surged past the $1trillion-mark last year after Hertz announced a deal to buy 100,000 of Musk’s electric cars in an overhaul of its rental fleet. Tesla is the first automaker to surpass the $1 trillion barrier.
How many companies does Elon Musk own?
SpaceX
SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp, is an American aerospace manufacturer hoping to unlock the final frontier to the general public.
Musk is the founder and CEO of the company which originally started way back in 2002.
It has since worked closely with other space agencies such as NASA and the European Space Agency, completing contracts and testing its potential.
It has become famous for its reusable rockets, ones which cut the price of spaceship usage almost in half.
The long-term goals of the company are to reach Mars and beyond, establish a city on the red planet and ensure humanity's survival away from the challenges of Earth.
Tesla
Tesla is now one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world and after Hertz deal to buy 100,000 cars, it is the first to surpass $1 trillion in stock.
Elon Musk co-founded the company and serves as its CEO.
It has pushed far beyond simply manufacturing cars as well, as Musk just announced the opening of his new Gigafactory in Texas.
A Gigafactory is a lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle component factory. There are now six of them around the world.
Neuralink
Neuralink was founded in 2016 by Musk and is a neurological company that develops implantable brain-machine interfaces.
The company is dedicated to developing a device that, once implanted in the human brain, would allow a computer to translate a person’s thoughts into action.
Speaking to the Wall Street journal, Musk said: “I think we have a chance with Neuralink to restore full-body functionality to someone who has a spinal cord injury.
“Neuralink’s working well in monkeys, and we’re actually doing just a lot of testing and just confirming that it’s very safe and reliable and the Neuralink device can be removed safely.”
The Boring Company
Finally, The Boring Company is an American infrastructure and tunnel construction services company.
Founded by Musk, its ongoing and proposed projects are designed for intro-city transit systems.
So far it has completed two tunnels in Las Vegas for loop travel. Loop travel is a technology and transport system being developed by Virgin Hyperloop.
It is a high speed transportation system in which passengers would travel in pod-like trains through vacuum tubes.
Why is Elon Musk trying to buy Twitter?
After getting a seat on Twitter’s board, he now wants all of the company to himself.
Musk is a believer of free speech and in a letter to the chairman of Twitter’s board, he argued that the company had a profound potential for freedom of speech.
He said it would “neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
It seems Musk wants to unlock the potential of the social media platform and open it completely for the public to voice their opinions away from censorship.
However, his chances of acquiring the company have diminished significantly after investment company, The Vanguard Group, up its share in Twitter to 10.3%, overtaking Musk's 9.1%.
There is still a chance he could buy the company however, but his battle will be much harder now.
How much is he willing to pay for Twitter?
Even for most of the richest people alive, the thought of buying out Twitter completely is completely beyond their grasp.
However, for Musk it appears well within the realms of possibility, as he has already tabled an Earth-shattering offer.
He has offered to buy the company for $54.20 a share, or around $43 billion in total.
While this may seem like a vast amount of money, even for Musk’s standards, his wealth exceeds far beyond this figure.
