Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to become second richest person in the world in Bloomberg rankings

Founder of Tesla Elon muskElon Reeve MuskSpaceX capsule arrives at International Space Station Tesla to join S&P 500 Twitter hires famous hacker to lead security operations READ MORE surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk, 49, added $ 100.3 billion to his net worth in 2020, more than anyone else in Bloomberg’s ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, Bloomberg News reported. In the latest wave, Musk’s net worth jumped $ 7.2 billion to $ 127.9 billion.

His rise in the index from the 35th richest person in January is attributed to Tesla, whose market value is approaching $ 500 billion. About three-quarters of Musk’s net worth is made up of Tesla stocks.

Musk stays behind Amazon founder Jeff BezosJeffrey (Jeff) Preston Bezos How Space Exploration Will Help Fight Climate Change Bezos Makes First Billion-Dollar Donation Earth Fund Former Amazon Worker Suits Company Over COVID-19 PLUS Conditions, whose net worth is approximately $ 182 billion. Musk overtook Gates in 2017.

The rise of the Tesla founder led to the second time in the index’s eight-year history that Gates was not considered one of the two richest people in the world.

Gates, who is currently valued at $ 127.7 billion, has donated billions to charity since his fame, including $ 27 billion to the Gates Foundation since 2006, according to Bloomberg News.

Microsoft co-founder spent a lot of money on COVID-19 vaccine research this year and argued with Musk online after Tesla founder questioned pandemic data and called COVID-19 testing “Extremely false.”

Bloomberg News noted that index members have collectively gained 23% – or $ 1.3 trillion – in wealth since the start of 2020, even as the pandemic has resulted in massive layoffs of workers around the world.