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Enough Musk Spam
For those that have had enough of the Elon Musk worship online.
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Their rockets (Falcon 9) are literally the most reliable in history of spaceflight, and are still the only company that reuses rockets instead of building a new one for every flight - obviously a much cheaper approach, so they make boatloads of money. They made over 9 billion in 2023, likely more in 2024.
They do spend a lot on R&D, with all their test vehicle explosions as you noted, but this doesn't affect actual operations where profits are made.
Plus in addition to being a launch provider, they are now also bringing in ~4 billion a year through their ISP business (Starlink).
That being said, it doesn't explain Musk's wealth at all, it's still orders of magnitude away, so I'm as puzzled as you are.