It is almost entirely "accounting fraud" or rather being a successful hypeman for his companies. His most successful company, tesla has only sold 1.3 million vehicles this year. Ford sold 1.9 million vehicles in 2023. Ford is worth 39 billion and tesla is worth 1.35 trillion. So, since the majority of his networth is from stock in tesla, a company that many feel is way over valued given it's worth to sales ratio. Just look at the ratio of cars sold to value, its over 1 million a car for tesla. Ford's ratio is on about $20,000 a vehicle, a reasonable value.