Sean Rameswaram

And just to kind of put that in perspective, no one is really close to him at all at this point.

It used to be it was like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and some others were kind of batting back and forth for who was the richest person since the increased valuation of SpaceX in the last year or so.

It's really...

been rocket fuel to his wealth.

Musk's pay package could be worth up to $737 billion.

I mean, the bigger thing for him is the money gives him control, right?

He wants to have control over these companies.

You know, according to people I've talked to over the years, he wants his companies to change humanity, put their mark on kind of our existence.

Tesla was an initial gamble for him.

to show that electric cars could be cool and be sustainable and to kind of push the automotive industry to electrification of the automobile.

And SpaceX was created in large part around a similar idea of igniting a renewed excitement around the potential of traveling to the stars.

Now, he does like some of the side benefits, right?

Being the world's richest man does have some benefits.

He would say that the money is really just the power to do these things to create more value and try to make sci-fi dreams possible.

Tim Higgins wrote a book about Elon.

It's called Power Play, Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century.

When we're back, we're going to talk about the other AI POs, OpenAI, Anthropic, what it'll all mean for you, that kind of thing.

Support for Today Explained comes from Bombas.

Spring is here, perhaps.

You're going outside, running, walking, just to get active again.