Elon Musk Surpassed Jeff Bezos:
Elon Musk, the outspoken chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, recently became the world’s richest person, surpassing Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, after shares in the car company co-founded by him escalated.
It all happened on Thursday when the electric car maker’s shares increased to 4.8%, enough to get past Bezos, who had been the world’s richest man since 2017. Bloomberg’s billionaire index, which tracks the changes in the wealth of the world’s top 500 richest people, has confirmed Musk’s title by publishing an article.
According to the index, the net worth of 49 years old Elon Musk hit $181 billion on Wednesday (10:15 am), leading him $3 billion ahead of Bezos. The market value of Tesla Company has grown to more than $750.
Responding to the tweet about the world’s richest person, Musk tweeted, “How strange,” he added, “Well, back to work.”
Musk raced to pass Warren Buffet (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway) in July to become the seventh richest person, followed by overtaking Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft Corporation) in November to become the world’s, second-richest man. In 2020, Sout-African-born Elan Musk gained more than 165 billion dollars, probably the fastest bout of wealth creation in history.
The success of Musk hasn’t been limited to only earth. In May, he supervised 4 NASA Astronauts’ triumphant launch into space with his other company, then SpaceX. After two months, they returned safely. It was a milestone for the company that focused on showing space rockets could be utilized and reused, indicating the possibility of an emerging era of space traveling with the ultimate aim of flying humans to Mars.
According to a pinned tweet posted on Musk’s tweeter account, he planned to spend half of his money to solve the problems on Earth and the other half to aid in the establishment of a self-sustaining city on Mars to assure the continuation of life in case a meteor hits the Earth or World War 3 happens, and we all destroy ourselves.
Elon Musk founded SpaceX 20 years ago, aiming to reach Mars and focused on disrupting an industry deeply ingrained in the government with a private journey aimed at human space travel.
His speedy soaring through the charts demonstrates a wealth gain of extraordinary proportions. According to The Washington Post report, his wealth stood at $37 billion at the start of 2020. That means over the span of a year; Musk added almost $148 billion more to his fortune.
The sudden surge in Tesla Company’s stock price further expanded the value light-years apart from other carmakers on various metrics. Tesla generated almost half a million cars in 2020, a fragment of General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.
Musk first made his assets with his co-founded PayPal, and then earned about $165 million by selling it to eBay. In 2004, he invested in Tesla, and according to Forbes, only in one year, it supported around a 20% stake in the company. He was promoted to the company’s chairman in the same year. In 2008, he became CEO, a title he maintains to this day.
According to company filings, Musk is set to qualify for other options to buy another 17 million Tesla shares early this year. Those shares would be worth at least $12.3 billion at the current value of shares, after taking the exercise price into account.
