Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, kicked off the new year with a characteristically bold title: the world’s richest person.
A 4.9% rise in the electric carmaker’s stock price on Wednesday brought Musk to less than $ 3 billion from the founder of Amazon.com Inc. Jeff Bezos, who currently occupies the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.
The South African-born engineer’s net worth was $ 184.5 billion at 1:28 PM in New York, just ahead of Bezos, who has been ranked number one since October 2017. As the CEO 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 closes an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. In the past year, its net worth has increased by more than $ 146 billion, possibly the fastest period of prosperity in history. Its rise was fueled by an unprecedented rise in Tesla’s stock price, which rose 743% last year thanks to consistent earnings, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.
Wednesday’s jump in Tesla’s stock price is fueling further inflation of a valuation, light years away from other automakers on numerous statistics. Tesla produced just over half a million cars last year, a fraction of Ford Motor Co.’s production. and General Motors Co. The company is poised for further short-term gains as Democrats are on the cusp of seizing both seats in the Georgia Senate and handing over control of Congress to the party advocating faster adoption of electric vehicles.
Stock options
Musk, 49, has benefited in more ways than one from Tesla’s stratospheric rise. In addition to his 20% stake in the automaker, he sits on $ 41.1 billion in unrealized paper gains on acquired stock options. Those collaterals come from two grants he received in 2012 and 2018, the last of which was the largest wage deal ever signed between a CEO and a board of directors.
Despite his astronomical profits, Musk has said he has little interest in tangible things and has few assets outside of his interests in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in one interview last month that the main purpose of its wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution into a space-faring civilization.
“I want to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” said Musk. “That just means a lot of capital.”
The 500 richest people in the world added a record $ 1.8 trillion to their combined net worth last year, equivalent to a 31% increase. Profits were disproportionately high, where five individuals have a fortune in excess of $ 100 billion and another 20 are worth at least $ 50 billion.
Just six days after the start of the new year, the rankings have already been shaken by extraordinary rallies. On Tuesday, Chinese Zhong Shanshan jumped past Warren Buffett to claim sixth place after shares of his bottled water company surged, Add $ 13.5 billion to his fortune.
– With the help of Anders Melin
(Updates with Tesla output in the fifth paragraph.)