Are Any of Elon Musk's Other Companies Publicly Traded Besides Tesla?

With over 41 million Twitter followers, Elon Musk is among the most popular yet controversial business leaders. Overall, 2020 has been a phenomenal year for Musk. The sharp rise in Tesla stock has made him the world’s second-richest person. He also created a record by adding over $100 billion to his net worth in a year. Along with Tesla, Musk has founded several other companies. Are any of his other companies publicly traded?

Incidentally, Musk didn't found Tesla. The company was founded in 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk entered Tesla as an investor in 2004. While Musk didn't found Tesla, he has founded several other companies. In 1999, Musk founded X.com, which later became PayPal. Musk founded SpaceX and The Boring Company. He is also the co-founder of OpenAI and Neuralink.

Musk claims to be cash poor since all of his wealth is tied up in the companies he owns. At times, he has to sell Tesla shares to raise cash. He owns over a 20 percent stake in Tesla. Apart from Tesla, Musk also holds stakes in SpaceX, The Boring Company, OpenAI, and Neuralink.

Neuralink is a neurotechnology company that is developing a high bandwidth brain-machine interface. The company was founded by Musk and Max Hodak in 2016 and has raised $158 funding, according to Crunchbase. Based on past comments from Musk, Neuralink chips could help treat addiction, brain injuries, depression, and autism. He also hinted that Neuralink chips could be used to stream music directly into the brain.

Musk founded The Boring Company in 2016. The company constructs tunnels for transportation. According to The Boring Company, the tunnels would help solve the “problem of soul-destroying traffic.” Musk founded The Boring Company due to his frustration with traffic in Los Angeles. The costs of digging tunnels can be prohibitive. Musk is working towards reducing the cost of digging tunnels by a factor of 10 to make them a viable alternative.

Musk has managed to bring down the cost of Tesla cars over the years. He has been passing along the cost benefits from lower battery costs and better economies of scale to Tesla buyers.

Musk started SpaceX in 2002. SpaceX is a space travel company with a mission to cut space travel costs to facilitate the colonization of Mars. The company focuses on developing advanced rockets and spacecraft. Jeff Bezos is also working on a similar project with his company, Blue Origin. Fidelity and Alphabet are among SpaceX investors. However, since it is a private company, retail investors can’t invest in it.

SpaceX is among the most valuable private companies. In October 2020, Morgan Stanley increased its valuation from $52 billion to $100 billion. SpaceX is the largest company among Musk’s private companies.

Starlink is part of SpaceX. It's a space satellite Internet company. So far, SpaceX has successfully launched 700 Starlink satellites. Jeff Bezos’ Project Kuiper competes with SpaceX. In February 2020, SpaceX’s president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, said, “Right now we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public.”

All of Musk’s private companies are as futuristic as Tesla. He has redefined the automotive industry. Now, all automakers see electric vehicles as the future. Musk's other companies could also disrupt their respective industries. While they might not be publicly traded right now, expect a big rush of investors whenever Musk decides to take them public. After all, everybody wants another Tesla in their portfolio!