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Elon Musk has just surpassed Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person

The Tesla executive's net worth rocketed to US$188.5 billion on January 7

Bloomberg
Jan 07, 2021  •  May 19, 2021  •  1 minute read  •  Join the conversation
In a Sept. 29, 2015, file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif.
In a Sept. 29, 2015, file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif. Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez /Associated Press

Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.

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A 4.8-per-cent rally in the electric carmaker’s share price Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.

The South Africa-born engineer’s net worth was US$188.5 billion at 10:15 a.m. in New York, US$1.5 billion more than Bezos, who has held the top spot since October 2017. As chief executive officer of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, Musk is also a rival to Bezos, owner of Blue Origin LLC, in the private space race.

The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. Over the past year his net worth soared by more than US$150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743 per cent last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.

The jump in Tesla’s stock price further inflates a valuation light-years apart from other automakers on numerous metrics. Tesla produced just over half-a-million cars last year, a fraction of the output of Ford and General Motors. The company is poised for further near-term gains as Democrats captured both Georgia Senate seats and handed control of Congress to the party that’s advocated for quicker adoption of electric vehicles.

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