Tesla CEO Elon Musk has officially displaced Bill Gates to become the second richest person. Bill Gates who was once the world’s richest man, had settled in the second position after he was dethroned by Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.
Tesla shares were up 6.43% to $555.38 per share at the close of trading on Tuesday, and rose by 1.35% to $562.90 per share in after-market trading. The stock is up over 730% in one year.
Musk’s net worth currently stands at $136 billion as he has gained $108 billion this year alone. Thus, making him $7 billion richer than Bill Gates with a net worth of $129 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as Tesla’s market value topped $500 billion.
Jeff Bezos remains the richest man in the world with a net worth of $183 billion. Bezos’s net worth has risen by $68.1 billion in 2020 while Bill Gates’s net worth rose by $15.8 billion.
Mark Zukerberg holds the fourth position with a net worth of $105 billion, he has gained $26.5 billion this year.
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Musk had predicted in 2019 that self-driving Teslas, which are still a work in progress, would boost the automaker’s market cap to $500 billion. At the time of Musk’s prediction, its market cap was under $45 billion.
Tesla’s surge in value has been driven by a series of good news recently, from its inclusion in the exclusive S&P 500 index and Morgan Stanley upgraded its stock to “overweight” for the first time since 2017.
Goldman Sachs expects a tidal wave of large-cap mutual funds tracking the S&P 500 to fuel another rally for the automaker next month, when it will join the index as one of the 10 most valuable members on December 21.
Musk’s net worth is not solely down to a large stake in Tesla, but also to his other companies, space exploration group SpaceX, and infrastructure and construction firm The Boring Company. He previously said he wouldn’t take any cash salary from Tesla until it hits $100 billion in market cap.
By: Ifunanya Ikueze
