Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Wednesday, December 17th.

Today on Forbes, Elon Musk just became the first person ever worth $600 billion.

Elon Musk just took another giant leap toward becoming the world's first trillionaire.

Earlier this month, Musk's rocket maker,

SpaceX, launched a tender offer valuing the firm at $800 billion, up from $400 billion

in August. This, according to what two of the company's investors tell Forbes. That boosts the

fortune of Musk, who owns an estimated 42% of SpaceX, by $168 billion,

to an estimated $677 billion as of 12 p.m. Eastern, Monday, December 15th.

Musk is now the first person ever worth $600 billion or more. No one else has ever even been

worth $500 billion, or half a trillion dollars. The tender offer comes as SpaceX is targeting

an IPO in 26 that could value the company at around $1.5 trillion, one of the company's investors confirmed

to Forbes.

The tender offer and SpaceX's IPO plans were previously reported by a number of outlets.

Representatives for Musk and SpaceX did not respond to Forbes's requests for comment.

Even without an IPO at that valuation, which would likely make Musk a trillionaire,

Musk's estimated $336 billion stake in SpaceX is now his most valuable asset, according to Forbes's

estimates.

His 12% stake in Tesla, meanwhile, is worth $197 billion, excluding stock options from his 2018

CEO Performance Award that were avoided by a Delaware judge in January 2024. Forbes has

discounted the value of those options by 50% to $69 billion, pending the result of Musk's

ongoing appeal of the ruling to the Delaware Supreme Court.

If Musk loses that appeal, Tesla could still provide him with an alternative route to becoming a trillionaire.

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