Musk, who became the richest person in the world according to Forbes on Friday, loses that spot afterwards … [+]
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After a brief spell as the richest person in the world, Tesla billionaire Elon Musk is once again the second richest person in the world after his fortune dropped by nearly $ 14 billion in one day.
Shares of its electric vehicle maker, Tesla, fell nearly 8% Monday, dropping Musk’s net worth by $ 13.5 billion to $ 176.2 billion. After briefly overtaking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person last Friday, Musk has dropped back to second place, according to Forbesestimates.
He is now about $ 6 billion behind Bezos, who has a net worth of $ 182.1 billion. Amazon’s shares fell more than 2% on Monday, dropping Bezos’s net worth by $ 3.6 billion.
Over the course of 2020, Musk received several tranches of options worth billions of dollars each as Tesla hit various market cap and EBITDA milestones. Tesla’s board of directors certifies the award of each tranche and then issues a statement in a regulated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk appears to be eligible for another tranche of 8.44 million options – worth about $ 6.25 billion as of Monday’s closing price – but Forbes has not yet attributed these options to Musk because the board has not publicly certified them. (Bloomberg appears to be counting Musk’s latest tranche of options in the net worth calculations for Musk.)
Propelled by Tesla’s skyrocketing stock price, Musk’s fortunes have increased by about $ 150 billion since March 2020, when he was worth $ 24.6 billion. Tesla’s shares are up more than 720% in 2020 and are already up another 12% in the first week of 2021. Tesla joined the S&P 500 Index in late December 2020, a move that also drove stocks up. Tesla, the world’s most valuable automaker, produced half a million cars by 2020 – a fraction of the production at global giants like GM and Toyota.
Despite Musk’s decline on Monday, he is still about $ 20 billion richer than the world’s third richest person, French luxury magnate Bernard Arnault (worth $ 154.6 billion today).