Elon Musk just beat Bill Gates to become the second richest man in the world
Elon Musk defeated Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk’s net worth is now around $128 billion after growing by $100 billion this year.
It will take some time for Musk to reach the top position on the list held by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. There is a huge gap between Musk and Bezos, who reported a net worth of $182 billion. However, it was a significant rise for the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who was number 35 in January of this year.
Musk’s rapid rise was mainly driven by Tesla’s share price. The company currently has a market capitalization of nearly $500 billion, having started the year at less than $100 billion.
Tesla has the highest market capitalization of any automaker in the world, despite producing a fraction of the cars compared to more established automakers, according to a report in The Guardian. This year, Tesla plans to produce 500,000 cars, compared to around 10 million to be produced by a company like Toyota. According to Bloomberg, about three-quarters of Musk’s net worth is made up of Tesla shares.
Musk’s other big company, SpaceX, has also seen some success in recent times. Last week, SpaceX transported four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Crew Dragon spacecraft. This happened just after SpaceX’s first crewed flight into space in May of this year.
