Today, the comparison sounds ridiculous.
Elon Musk is worth an estimated $936 billion.
Horie Takafumi is an online Japanese influencer with millions of followers and runs several successful businesses in Japan, but the scale of operations is not comparable to Musk’s.
Rewind twenty years, and the picture changes dramatically.
In December 2005, Horie owned roughly 17% of Livedoor, worth about $1.2 billion.
Livedoor had acquired 27 companies in five years and increased revenue 22-fold to nearly $800 million. Its fiscal 2005 revenue reached ¥78.4 billion (about $712 million), with net income of ¥15.5 billion (about $141 million).
Horie was 33.
Musk, meanwhile, says his after-tax proceeds from PayPal were about $180 million. He was deploying that capital into extraordinarily risky ventures including SpaceX and Tesla.
On observable equity value and corporate scale, Horie was clearly ahead.
Then their paths diverged.
In January 2006, prosecutors raided Livedoor. Horie was arrested, later convicted of securities-law violations, and lost control of his primary compounding vehicle.
Musk kept his.
His PayPal capital ultimately became major stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. The compounding continued for another twenty years.
Horie kept building, despite spending time in prison (2011–2013). Today, his businesses range from media and technology to restaurants and space. In 2026, he said he was involved in operating more than 100 restaurant locations across multiple brands. He is also the director of Interstellar Technologies, a Japanese space infrastructure company developing orbital launch vehicles and communication satellites, which has raised ¥44.6 billion (about $282 million).
There is no reason to assume Livedoor would have become another Tesla or SpaceX.
But at 33, Horie already had a billion-dollar equity position, a fast-growing public company, an appetite for aggressive M&A and an interest in private space development.
Horie isn’t Japan’s Elon Musk today.
But in 2005, he had a credible path to becoming one.
Or perhaps he would never have needed the comparison at all.
He might simply have become known around the world as Horie or Horiemon.
($1 = ¥110.18 for 2005 figures and $1 = ¥158 for 2026 figures)
