[Hot Tabasco]

I can’t fathom how one person can accumulate $236 billion,

[Islasorna]

By forward thinking, marketing, and being the best in class among many markets.

IMO he’s earned it very well. Bezos also ‘earned it’, but Musk is way beyond.

[SmokingJoe]

Musk will hit $1 Trillion before the end of the decade, mostly from SpaceX, The Boring company and his other companies as well as from Tesla.

[CurlyDave]

I can’t fathom how one person can accumulate $236 billion,

He didn't. He owns stock in companies and he owns privately held companies with a theoretical value of $236 B.

The theoretical value is found by taking the last price of the shares of a company and multiplying by the number of shares he owns. If he were to sell all of his holdings at once the actual price he would get would be substantially less.

He is still immensely wealthy, but not quite as wealthy as claimed.

[roadcat]

I can’t fathom how one person can accumulate $236 billion,

He did it by taking risks. He sunk his money into his companies to keep them afloat, at least a couple times he spent every cent he had to keep them from bankruptcy and slept on factory floors. He could have kept his millions and let SpaceX and Tesla go bankrupt.