CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has just become the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion, CNBC reports.
The increase in Tesla’s share price, which happened on Thursday, pushed Musk ahead of Amazon boss, Jeff Bezos. Mr Bezos had been the richest person in the world since 2017. He is currently worth about $184 billion.
The surge in Elon Musk’s wealth over the past year, marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list, by any human in history.
This is seen as a dramatic financial turnaround for the Mr Musk, who just 18 months ago, was in the headlines for Tesla’s cash cuts, and his personal leverage against the company’s stock.
At the beginning of 2020, Elon Musk was worth about $27 billion, and he was barely on the list of the top 50 richest people.
However, due to the astronomical rise in the price of Tesla’s shares, along with Elon Musk’s generous pay package, the Tesla boss has added more than $150 billion to his net worth.
On the contrary, Amazon’s share price has remained on the flat, due to the potential for increased regulation from US regulatory bodies.
Elon Musk had in July, passed Warren Buffett to become the seventh richest person; and in November, Musk raced past Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world.
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Elon Musk has gained more wealth over the past 12 months than Bill Gates’ entire net worth of $132 billion.
According to analysts, Tesla’s shares have gone up more than 5% to nearly $800 in midday trading on Thursday, and the company’s market value has grown to more than $750 billion.
While Bloomberg Billionaires Index had Musk within $3 billion of Bezos’ net worth on Wednesday, before Thursday’s trading, the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List still had Musk about $14 billion behind Bezos after the market close Wednesday.
Forbes pegged Bezos’ net worth at $186 billion and Musk at $172 billion. Forbes, however, may not be including the value of Musk’s options, which he received as part of his pay package, to buy more than 33 million shares of Tesla.