Billionaire Elon Musk, soon-to-be owner of Twitter, has, in recent days earned many descriptions. Free speech warrior. Donald Trump revivalist. Destroyer of platforms. But one descriptor nobody has mentioned: baldness. That’s because Musk, now 50, likely had a hair transplant done some years ago.

And, as befits the world’s richest person, the results, according to Dr Ateka Khan, hair transplant surgeon at Hair Doctors in Sydney’s Bronte, look fantastic. “The front hairline has natural density and hair direction and appears to have been planned and executed very well.”

The hair allegedly cost Musk somewhere around US $20,000 ($A29,000) a figure that doesn’t surprise Khan, who believes Musk likely had two procedures, known as FUTs, or follicular unit transplantations, which involve cutting out a long strip of scalp skin on the back and sides of the head from which individual hair follicles are dissected and then transplanted onto the hairless areas in the front. The only drawback is the scar left behind.

While experts believe Musk had a couple of FUTs sometime in the early 2000s, advances in technology now mean that scars – and the need for longer hair to cover them – are a thing of the past. “Current hair trends such as skin fades and buzz cuts are the reason why the latest FUE (follicular unit extraction) method is becoming the most popular, especially in younger men,” says Khan.