The Tesla and SpaceX CEO became the first person to achieve a net worth of US$500 billion, briefly, as the shares in his electric vehicle company rebound from his clumsy stint in politics, amid other gains.

The 54-year-old’s net worth hit US$500.1 billion Wednesday before dipping back to $499.1 billion, the publication’s “Real-Time Billionaires” tracker reported.

Ranked after him are Oracle CEO Larry Ellison with a net worth of $350.7 billion, followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a net worth of US$245.8 billion on the Forbes list.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and dropping out of Stanford University, Musk banked his first millions when he sold an online publishing software company to US computer maker Compaq for more than US$300 million in 1999.

His next company eventually merged with PayPal, and after leaving that venture, the South African-born tech entrepreneur founded space rocket company SpaceX in 2002 and became the chairman of electric carmaker Tesla in 2004.