Elon Musk’s net worth has exploded, hovering around $1.4 trillion on June 17 and exceeding the market cap of Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship cryptocurrency, worth around $1.3 trillion.
The increase in wealth comes as SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) shares have surged around 50% from their initial $135 price on June 12, when Musk became the world’s first trillionaire.
Musk surpassed Bitcoin after a single-day SpaceX stock jump of around 8% on June 16 – a $102 billion gain that pushed the firm’s market cap close to $2.8 billion and raised the CEO’s own net worth by 5.65%, according to Forbes.
In comparison, ‘digital gold’ barely budged in the same time frame and now sits on a further daily loss of nearly 3% at press time.
Elon Musk is worth more than Bitcoin
Before the space company went public, the entrepreneur’s net worth was estimated at approximately $780 billion, meaning it took mere days for SpaceX to boost his fortune by almost 80%, as he owns more than 6 billion company shares (a 46% ownership stake).
For context, the all-time high Bitcoin market cap was close to $2.5 trillion in October 2025, when the digital asset was trading at above $125,000. At that time, its market cap was larger than virtually all S&P 500 names, except for tech giants like Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Eight months later, Bitcoin has lost nearly half of its record value, while SpaceX has managed to surpass Amazon within less than a week, now being the seventh largest asset by market cap, slowly approaching Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and its $2.9 trillion valuation.
Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin holders see the development as highly symbolic. After all, while Bitcoin still remains one of the world’s largest financial assets, the fact that the value tied to a single entrepreneur’s holdings has surpassed its 12-digit market capitalization has added another benchmark to the rivalry between traditional wealth creation and decentralized finance (DeFi).
The main question is now whether Bitcoin can punch back, as its price swings, movements in SPCX shares, and broader market sentiment could quickly alter the balance.
Featured image via Shutterstock
