Forbes has ranked Elon Musk No. 1 on its new “Forbes Innovator 250” list, calling him America’s greatest living innovator. The special ranking was released on February 11, 2026, as part of a broader project tied to the United States’ 250th anniversary.
The magazine highlights one core claim about him: Musk is “the only person in history to have founded (or grown from nearly nothing) five companies, each with multibillion-dollar valuations, each in a different industry.” That line anchors the entire feature and sets him apart from other names on the list.
Musk’s top slot rests on the performance and scope of five companies: Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI and The Boring Company. Tesla focuses on electric vehicles and clean energy products, and market data places its value in the hundreds of billions of dollars. SpaceX, founded in 2002, concentrates on rockets, commercial launches and satellite internet through Starlink, and its private valuation has risen sharply over the past few years.
Neuralink, created in 2016, develops brain–computer interfaces, and it sits at the intersection of medicine, neuroscience and regulation. The Boring Company, launched in 2017, works on tunneling and transportation infrastructure projects aimed at reducing cost and construction time. Then xAI, formed in 2023, builds artificial intelligence models at a time when interest in large language systems has surged across the technology industry.
SpaceX–xAI merger and Musk’s personal wealth
In early February 2026, SpaceX completed an acquisition of xAI, forming a combined business that market observers value at about $1.25 trillion, according to recent financial reporting. The merger pulls Musk’s space, AI and satellite internet operations under a tighter structure, and that could give him more strategic control over how those technologies develop.
As these valuations grew, Forbes raised its estimate of Musk’s net worth to around $852 billion. With that figure, he became the first individual reported to pass the $800 billion mark, placing him well ahead of other high-profile billionaires tracked by global wealth rankings.
The Innovator 250 is the opening list in a yearlong Forbes initiative built around six rankings that each spotlight a different theme linked to the American Dream. Innovation leads the series, and later lists will focus on other areas of national life and achievement.
To create the innovator ranking, Forbes reporters and editors put forward close to 2,000 candidates from technology, science, arts, business and public life. A panel of outside judges that includes investors like Jim Breyer, former Merck chief executive Ken Frazier, Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, and journalist Kara Swisher then scored those names. They used five criteria: creativity, breadth, disruption, engagement and impact.
Role of AI in the ranking process
The editors added another layer by asking two major AI systems, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, to score candidates using the same five criteria. Those AI-generated scores sat alongside the evaluations from human judges. Editors then combined all of that input with their own reporting to decide the final order, which put Musk at the top of the list.
Forbes plans a companion list of 250 historical innovators that will cover earlier eras of American history. That second ranking is expected to place Musk and his peers in a longer line of inventors, scientists and entrepreneurs.
Long before this ranking, Musk built a track record with earlier ventures. In the mid-1990s he co-founded Zip2, a web software firm that handled online business directories, and that company was later sold to Compaq for hundreds of millions of dollars. He then helped start X.com, an online financial services company that evolved into PayPal, which eBay bought in 2002 for about $1.5 billion.
Musk used much of that payout to launch SpaceX in 2002, taking a risk on private rockets at a time when many industry experts were skeptical. He joined Tesla soon after as an early investor and co-founder, then moved into a central leadership role as the company scaled electric vehicle production. Over the next decade he created Neuralink, founded The Boring Company and set up xAI, while remaining involved with other technology platforms and ventures.
Musk’s No. 1 position lands at a moment when his companies play visible roles in transport, spaceflight, AI and neurotechnology. The Innovator 250 list frames his story as part of a wider look at how innovation shapes the United States at its 250-year mark.
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