AFP, Washington

Billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is nearly halfway to becoming the planet’s first trillionaire, Forbes magazine reported Wednesday.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO became the first person to achieve a net worth of $500 billion, briefly, as the shares in his electric vehicle company rebound from his clumsy stint in politics, amid other gains.

The 54-year-old’s net worth hit $500.1 billion Wednesday before dipping back to $499.1 billion, the publication’s “Real-Time Billionaires” tracker reported.

Ranked after him are Oracle CEO Larry Ellison with a net worth of $350.7 billion, followed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a net worth of $245.8 billion on the Forbes list.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and dropping out of Stanford University, Musk banked his first millions when he sold an online publishing software company to US computer maker Compaq for more than $300 million in 1999.