How Much Does Elon Musk Make a Day in 2022?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is possibly the most famous business leader in corporate America. However, he's controversial at the same time with a large army of lovers as well as haters. Tesla stock soared 740 percent in 2020 and 50 percent in 2021. The rise in Tesla stock, as well as the increase in valuation of his privately held companies, has made Musk the world’s richest person ahead of Jeff Bezos. How much does Musk make a day?

Musk added over $200 billion to his wealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. He's the first person in history to add over $100 billion to his personal net worth in a year. Bezos also created a record in 2020. His net worth surpassed $200 billion and he became the first person to achieve the feat. Musk created another record in 2021 and became the first person ever to have a net worth in excess of $300 billion.

Musk added $129 billion to his net worth in 2020 and $121 billion in 2021. This would mean that he added around $350 million to his net worth per day in 2020 and around $331 million per day in 2021. However, amid the crash in Tesla stock, his net worth fell by $62 billion in the first half of 2022, which would mean a per day loss of around $342 million.

Here we need to distinguish between Musk’s net worth and income. While he's touted as the highest-paid CEO, Musk doesn't get any base salary or bonus from Tesla. He gets stock options from the company as part of the 2018 compensation plan that's linked to the company delivering key milestones.

Musk has unlocked billions of dollars of Tesla shares in stock options over the last two years. In 2021, he sold several Tesla shares which would help him cover his massive tax bill arising from these stock options.

Most of Musk’s wealth comes from his ownership of Tesla and SpaceX. He's the largest Tesla shareholder with around a 15.7 percent stake. The valuation of SpaceX, which isn't publicly traded yet, also soared to $125 billion in a May 2022 funding round.

Apart from the stock options, the rise in valuations of Tesla and SpaceX contributes the biggest chunk to Musk's net worth. In 2021, Tesla became the first automaker ever to command a market cap in excess of $1 trillion. No other automaker in history has come anywhere close. Toyota Motors, which is the largest legacy automaker, has a market cap of just over $250 billion.

While Tesla's market cap has come down amid the crash in its stock, it's still more than leading automakers combined. Eventually, Musk might also look at listing SpaceX, which would lead to effective price discovery for the company.

Musk frequently pledges a part of his stake in Tesla for loans. While Musk is the richest person globally, he's cash poor. He has been taking loans and mortgages for daily expenses and business investments. His wealth is tied to Tesla and SpaceX shares, as well as the other privately-held companies that he owns.

After much drama, Musk backed out from the deal to buy Twitter. He has raised doubts about the number of fake accounts on Twitter. However, Twitter isn't too impressed and has sued the billionaire for walking away from the deal.