Elon Musk’s first company was Zip2, a software venture which he set up with his younger brother, Kimbal, in 1995. Developing it left them hard up – they slept in their office – and, after four years, they managed to sell the business for $307mn (£245mn). This was in 1999, just before the dotcom bubble burst. Elon Musk’s share was $22mn.
He invested $12mn of that in X.com, which evolved into Paypal and was sold to eBay in 2002. Musk received $176mn. $100mn went into founding SpaceX, his rocket company, and then in 2004, for $6.35mn, he became the majority shareholder of Tesla.
According to recent articles in the US Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), in the early years, Musk ended up investing about $300mn in Tesla (US:TSLA). He’s received no meaningful salary or bonus, but every so often Tesla has granted him a hefty market-based option, with 10 years in which to buy the shares fixed at the (historic) grant price – but only if ambitious performance conditions are achieved.