(Feb 20): First Tesla Inc surged. Then SpaceX became the world’s most valuable tech start-up, and xAI nearly doubled its valuation before looking to do it again. Now, X is looking to join Elon Musk’s other companies in leveraging the billionaire’s unprecedented political power. 

If the social-media company succeeds in its quest to raise money from investors at a US$44 billion (RM195.03 billion) valuation, it will lift the cloud that has hung over it since Musk paid that much for it in 2022. It would also boost his wealth by about US$20 billion, another lift for the world’s richest person.

Investors are eager to get close to Musk, the so-called “first buddy”, who poured money into President Donald Trump’s campaign and is now running the administration’s controversial cost-cutting efforts. His companies have gained a combined US$613 billion in value since the election assuming anticipated funding rounds go as planned, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Even after retreating from an all-time high in December, Tesla is still worth nearly US$400 billion more than it was the day before the election. Meanwhile, a flurry of new funding rounds for Musk’s private companies, including X, SpaceX and xAI, will add over US$220 billion in combined value if investments in X and xAI close at the reported size. 

Musk’s net worth — US$397.1 billion as of Tuesday’s close — is up more than 50% since the election, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. If all the funding rounds close as planned, he would be worth over US$420 billion.

To be sure, the increases in Musk’s wealth are paper gains. However, they still represent a remarkable vote of faith from investors, even as he spends most of his time in Washington focusing on the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Tesla was the biggest winner among Musk’s companies in the immediate aftermath of the election. In the six weeks following the vote, the carmaker’s shares nearly doubled to an all-time high. That propelled Musk’s personal fortune to a peak of US$486.4 billion on Dec 17, the highest net worth ever recorded by Bloomberg’s wealth index. Since then, Tesla’s stock has fallen around 25%, but the company is still worth about US$1.17 trillion.

SpaceX and its investors agreed in December to buy insider shares in a deal valuing the company at about US$350 billion, a 67% premium from its previous tender offer less than six months prior. The new valuation made SpaceX the world’s most valuable tech start-up. On Tuesday, President Trump told reporters that he wouldn’t let Musk participate in any space-related government work.

Musk’s AI start-up, xAI, released its Grok-3 chatbot on Monday, and is in advanced talks with Dell Technologies Inc to secure more than US$5 billion of server capacity to train and operate its AI models. xAI raised money at a more than US$40 billion valuation in the weeks after the election, and the company is currently putting out feelers for another deal that would nearly double its implied value. 

X has been the most surprising of Musk’s companies to see a surge in value. When Musk purchased the social media platform, then named Twitter, for US$44 billion in 2022, the deal was quickly scorned as advertisers fled the platform, and it struggled with service outages. Fidelity Investments had marked down X’s value by nearly 72% as of October. 

Banks were recently able to unload US$4.74 billion of X debt at par, borrowings that had previously been spurned by investors.

Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee