A Decade of Musk's Ventures: Which Stock Picks Actually Paid Off?

What stocks does Elon Musk invest in, and more importantly, how have they performed over the past decade? Understanding Musk’s portfolio evolution provides valuable lessons for any investor considering similar positions. While Musk’s wealth derives primarily from founding rather than passive investing, the trajectory of his major enterprises—PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX—reveals fascinating patterns about which sectors can generate substantial returns.

The Foundation: Where It All Started

Musk’s path to becoming the world’s wealthiest individual began not with brilliant stock picks, but with strategic company launches and exits. His earliest venture, Zip2, established the formula: build, innovate, sell for profit. When he liquidated that startup, Musk pocketed roughly $22 million—the initial capital that would fund his subsequent moves. This initial wealth became the launching pad for his most transformative investments.

Tesla: The Outlier Success Story

Among the companies Musk has led or invested in heavily, Tesla stands as the clear investment winner. Founded in 2004 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Terpenning, Tesla aimed to revolutionize transportation through electric vehicles. While Musk served as an early investor and board chairman, his transition to CEO in 2008 coincided with the company’s trajectory shift toward profitability and scale.

The stock performance tells a compelling story: Tesla shares traded at approximately $16 per share in mid-2015. By June 2025, despite market volatility and recent pullbacks, the stock reached $317—representing gains exceeding 1,900%. For context, a $10,000 investment made a decade ago would have grown to roughly $304,000 today. This outperformance dwarfs most market benchmarks and explains significantly why Musk accumulated such extraordinary wealth from this single holding.

SpaceX: The Privately-Held Juggernaut

SpaceX presents a different investment scenario entirely. This aerospace and telecommunications company has transformed space exploration while building Starlink’s satellite internet infrastructure. The company has secured over $20 billion in government contracts since 2008, according to recent industry reports, demonstrating sustained institutional confidence.

However, SpaceX remains privately held, making traditional stock market investment impossible. Musk’s 42% stake carries a reported valuation of approximately $147 billion. While secondary market platforms like EquityZen have emerged as alternatives for trading private company stakes, they weren’t accessible to retail investors throughout most of the past decade, effectively removing SpaceX from consideration as a typical stock investment vehicle.

PayPal: The Foundational Business

PayPal’s story illustrates how first-mover advantage doesn’t always translate to explosive returns. Co-founded by Musk and Peter Thiel, the digital payment platform revolutionized peer-to-peer transactions. Though Musk was controversially removed from the CEO position by the board during his honeymoon in 2000, his foundational contribution shaped PayPal’s DNA.

When PayPal separated from eBay and began trading independently in 2015, shares cost $38 each. Current pricing (June 2025) stands at $74, reflecting approximately 95% appreciation. An investor placing $10,000 in 2015 would see that position worth roughly $19,500 today. While respectable, PayPal’s returns dramatically underperformed Tesla’s explosive growth, highlighting how sector selection matters as much as company selection.

OpenAI: The No-Return Investment

OpenAI, which Musk co-founded in 2015 to advance artificial intelligence research safely, remains structured as a private nonprofit entity. Consequently, stock ownership or investment participation isn’t available to the public. This inaccessibility meant even sophisticated investors couldn’t replicate Musk’s involvement during the company’s critical growth phases.

The Investment Lesson: Luck, Timing, and Diversification

Examining Musk’s investment outcomes reveals uncomfortable truths about wealth accumulation. His extraordinary returns stemmed not from passive stock selection but from operational control, strategic timing, and willingness to take concentrated bets on unproven companies. Musk didn’t achieve billionaire status by diversifying across index funds—he did it by founding companies, taking significant equity stakes, and maintaining influence over strategic direction.

For most investors, replicating this approach proves impractical. Capital requirements exceed what typical investors possess, and most founders’ attempts at building billion-dollar companies fail. This reality argues strongly for alternative strategies: broad market exposure through diversified funds, consistent contribution patterns, and focus on controllable variables like expenses and time horizon.

The historical performance of Musk-connected stocks teaches humility about prediction. Tesla’s 1,900% return was neither obvious nor inevitable in 2015. SpaceX’s valuation seemed speculative before government contracts validated its business model. Even identifying which companies Musk invested in required insider knowledge unavailable to general market participants.

For aspiring investors seeking to build wealth, the more reliable path involves regular contributions to diversified investment vehicles rather than concentrated bets on individual entrepreneurs’ ventures. Understanding what stocks powerful figures invest in provides educational value, but successfully timing and selecting individual positions remains extraordinarily difficult regardless of track record.