Elon Musk has once again surpassed the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, to reclaim the title of the richest man in the world, according to Forbes. Mu
Elon Musk has once again surpassed the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, to reclaim the title of the richest man in the world, according to Forbes.
Musk becomes the third person in the world to rack up a fortune worth $200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s richest.
His milestone feat follows Amazon founder and space rival, Bezos, who first reached the $200 billion mark in August 2020, and Chairman of luxury brand LVMH, Bernard Arnault, who did so for a short time last month.
Daily fluctuations in Tesla and Amazon stock mean that the two billionaires regularly jump over one another to claim the “world’s richest” title.
As most of their wealth is directly tied to equity and value of their assets which constantly fluctuates, little of their wealth is in liquid cash or ready to spend form.
A Tesla stock rally on January 7 boosted Musk’s net worth by the several billion dollars needed to overtake Bezos and become the wealthiest person on Earth for the first time. But after Tesla shares tumbled about 2% in mid-February, wiping nearly $5 billion from Musk’s fortune in the process, Bezos briefly took the lead.
However, Amazon shares remained below during the end of the third business quarter, keeping the CEO’s fortune somewhat muted and the surge in Tesla stocks this week, gave Musk the boost to sit as the wealthiest again.
Shares of Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla continued a four-month rally, closing up 2.2% at $791.36, the highest they’ve been since February this year. Musk became $3.8 billion richer on Monday and was worth $203.4 billion at the close of markets.
Tesla’s stock price surged by more than 700% in 2020 alone, earning Musk nearly $140 billion, who has less than $30 billion in both assets and equity at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Musk is the highest shareholder of Tesla, with 18% worth of Tesla shares, giving him the biggest slice of both profits and losses.
