These proved to be extremely prudent investments, with Tesla now accounting for around two-thirds of America’s electric car sector, and SpaceX by far the biggest name in private space travel.
Stocks in the company surged by 3,000 per cent over the past decade - and Musk gets to walk away with 17 per cent of that pie.
He made his first million - $22million, in fact - in 1999, when he and his brother Kimbal sold Zip2, an online business directory they founded, for a cool $307m.
According to his personal legend, he first entered the world of business aged 12, selling Easter eggs door-to-door and developing an early computer game.
He ploughed this money into the two companies he is most associated with today - electric car company Tesla and rocket manufacturer SpaceX.
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