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Elon musk, the frank entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.
A 4.8% rally in the electric carmaker’s stock price on Thursday boosted Musk’s past Amazon.com Founder Inc. Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the 500 richest people in the world.
The South African-born engineer net worth was $ 188.5 billion as of 10:15 a.m. in New York City, $ 1.5 billion more than Bezos, who has been in the top spot since October 2017. As 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 caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. In the past year his net worth has skyrocketed over $ 150 billion, possibly the fastest growing wealth creation episode in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented event Tesla share price rally, which jumped 743% last year on consistent earnings, inclusion in the S&P 500 and enthusiasm from Wall Street and individual investors.
The rise in Tesla’s share price further inflates a valuation light years away from other automakers on many parameters. You’re here produced just over half a million cars last year, a fraction of the production of Ford engine Co. and General Motors Co. The company is poised to make further near-term gains as Democrats won both Georgia Senate seats and handed control of Congress to the party that advocated faster adoption of electric vehicles.
Stock options
Musk, 49, benefited from Tesla’s stratospheric rise in more than one way. In addition to his 20% stake in the automaker, he sits on about $ 42 billion in unrealized gains on paper on vested stock options. These titles come from two grants he received in 2012 and 2018, the last of which was the the biggest compensation contract ever struck between a CEO and a board of directors.
Despite his astronomical gains, Musk said he has little interest in material things and has few assets outside of his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in ainterviewlast month, that the main objective of its wealth is to accelerate the evolution of humanity towards a space civilization.
“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on MarchMusk said. “It just means a lot of capital.”
The 500 richest people in the worldaddeda record $ 1.8 trillion from their combined net worth last year, which equates to a 31% increase. The gains were disproportionate at the top, where five people hold fortunes of over $ 100 billion and another 20 are worth at least $ 50 billion.
Less than a week after the start of the new year, the standings have already been shaken up by some extraordinary rallies. China’s Zhong Shanshan passed Warren Buffett to claim sixth place after his bottled water company’s shares skyrocket,add$ 15.2 billion to his fortune.
– With the help of Anders Melin and Tom Maloney.
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