Musk contends he’ll go broke if Tesla, SpaceX go bankrupt

But the companies’ CEO says, 'Whoa' as automaker's shares climb to $420

With Tesla’s stock price hitting $420 a share on Monday, and Chief Executive Elon Musk owning approximately 20% of the electric carmaker’s outstanding shares, Tesla would really have to hit the skids for Musk to go broke.

But, that doesn’t mean Musk isn’t thinking about that possibility.

Musk, who in addition to running Tesla is CEO of space-exploration company SpaceX, said he would go down with the ship if both of his high-profile ventures were to go bankrupt. Musk even used his favorite method of talking about himself, and his businesses, Twitter, to make the proclamation on Sunday.

“If Tesla & SpaceX go bankrupt, so will I,” Musk tweeted. “As it should be.”

Musk made the comment about how his fortune would vanish shortly after he suggested some changes be made to his Wikipedia entry.

“Just looked at my wiki for 1st time in years. It’s insane!” tweeted Musk. “Btw, can someone please delete ‘investor’. I do basically zero investing.”

SpaceX is privately held, and doesn’t publicly disclose its financials. But, with Tesla shares reaching as high as $420.40, and the company having a market capitalization of around $76 billion, Musk’s Tesla stake on Monday was worth, on paper, $15.2 billion. Tesla’s shares have climbed almost 26% this year as the company has benefited from upbeat reaction to the unveilings of its Model Y crossover vehicle and its futuristic-looking Cybertruck, as well as the company rolling the first Model 3 cars off the assembly line at its Gigafactory in Shanghai.

And as Tesla’s stock price surpassed the $420-a-share mark early Monday, Musk was quick to get on Twitter to voice his appreciation of investors’ confidence in his company.

“Whoa…the stock is so high lol,” Musk tweeted.