Elon Musk is on the verge of making Jeff Bezos the richest in the world



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Elon Musk is on the verge of making Jeff Bezos the richest in the world

Elon Musk, 49, benefited from Tesla’s stratospheric rise in more than one way

Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, kicked off the new year with a distinctly daring title: Richest Person on the Planet.

A 2.8% rise in the electric carmaker’s share price on Wednesday propelled Musk to under $ 3 billion from Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, who currently sits at No. 1 on Bloomberg. Billionaires Index, a ranking of the 500 richest people in the world.

The South African-born engineer’s net worth was $ 181.1 billion on Wednesday, slightly lower than Bezos, who has been in number one since October 2017. As CEO of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX , Musk is also a rival of Bezos. , owner of Blue Origin LLC, in the race for private space.

The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. Over the past year, his net worth has skyrocketed to over $ 150 billion, possibly the fastest growing wealth in history. Its rise was fueled by an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s stock price, which jumped 743% last year on consistent earnings, inclusion in the S&P 500 and enthusiasm Wall Street and retail investors.

Tesla’s stock price surge on Wednesday further inflates a valuation light years away from other automakers in many metrics. Tesla produced just over half a million cars last year, a fraction of the output of Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. The company is poised to make further near-term gains as Democrats look set to win both Georgia Senate seats. and hand over control of Congress to the party that advocates faster adoption of electric vehicles.

Stock options

Musk, 49, benefited from Tesla’s stratospheric rise in more than one way. In addition to his 20% stake in the automaker, he sits on roughly $ 40 billion in unrealized gains on paper on vested stock options. These titles come from two grants he received in 2012 and 2018, the latter being the largest salary transaction ever between a CEO and a board of directors.

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Despite his astronomical gains, Musk said he has little interest in material things and has few assets outside of his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in an interview last month that the main purpose of his wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution towards a space civilization.

“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said. “It just means a lot of capital.”

The richest 500 people in the world added a record $ 1.8 trillion to their combined net worth last year, which equates to a 31% increase. The gains were disproportionate at the top, where five people hold fortunes of over $ 100 billion and another 20 are worth at least $ 50 billion.

Only six days after the start of the new year, the standings have already been shaken by some extraordinary rallies. China’s Zhong Shanshan passed Warren Buffett to claim sixth place after shares of his bottled water company surged, adding $ 15.2 billion to his fortune.

– With the help of Anders Melin and Tom Maloney.

(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)

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