In 2021, Elon Musk, pro­pelled by Tes­la’s immense growth, became the world’s rich­est per­son, sur­pass­ing Jeff Bezos with a net worth of $190 bil­lion as Tes­la’s stock soared to $260. This mete­oric rise was under­pinned by an extra­or­di­nary com­pen­sa­tion scheme agreed upon in 2018, which set aggres­sive tar­gets for Tes­la’s rev­enue, prof­it, and mar­ket val­ue. Con­trary to ini­tial skep­ti­cism, Tes­la achieved a stag­ger­ing mar­ket val­u­a­tion of over $1 tril­lion and report­ed a prof­it of $5 bil­lion on $19 bil­lion rev­enue in April 2022, mark­ing an 81% increase year-over-year. Musk’s for­tunes swelled, his net worth reach­ing $304 bil­lion ear­ly in 2022, thanks to the $56 bil­lion pay­out from Tes­la.

Despite his finan­cial suc­cess, Musk faced crit­i­cism for his bil­lion­aire sta­tus and min­i­mal tax con­tri­bu­tions, giv­en his unique com­pen­sa­tion struc­ture at Tes­la that avoid­ed reg­u­lar income. In response to pub­lic scruti­ny and a chal­lenge from Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren, Musk engaged with his audi­ence via a Twit­ter poll about sell­ing Tes­la stock to pay tax­es; he even­tu­al­ly paid a his­toric $11 bil­lion in tax­es, the largest sin­gle tax bill in U.S. his­to­ry. This move aimed to silence crit­ics and under­scored Musk’s will­ing­ness to con­tribute his fair share.

How­ev­er, wealth did not equate to hap­pi­ness for Musk. He expe­ri­enced severe mood swings and phys­i­cal symp­toms of stress, par­tic­u­lar­ly when not in ‘sur­vival mode.’ A reveal­ing inci­dent occurred dur­ing a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mex­i­co, for a fam­i­ly birth­day par­ty; Musk iso­lat­ed him­self, plagued by health issues and a pro­found sense of unease despite the cel­e­bra­to­ry atmos­phere. This episode exem­pli­fied his ongo­ing bat­tle with find­ing pur­pose and ful­fill­ment beyond the con­tin­u­ous chase for busi­ness suc­cess. His strug­gle with hap­pi­ness, even at the peak of his career, high­lights the com­plex inter­play between wealth, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and per­son­al well-being. Musk’s reflec­tive moments shed light on his inter­nal con­flicts, show­ing that despite mon­u­men­tal achieve­ments, the quest for con­tent­ment and mean­ing per­sists.