Tesla CEO Elon Musk tops Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world, according to the new data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index (BBI), which lists the world’s 500 wealthiest individuals. Musk’s net worth is currently more than $188 billion, $1 billion more than Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ net worth of $187 billion, due to Tesla’s continued increase in stock values. Bezos has been the richest human since 2017.

Upon completing this achievement, Musk responded in his manner, reacting to a Twitter user who posted the news with a “how strange” remark.

On Thursday, Tesla’s stock soared by 6.19 percent to a new high of $802.75 after opening at $777.63 higher than the previous closing price of $755.98. Stocks saw an uptick in purchases after RBC Capital Markets analysts terminated the bearish call for Tesla Inc. stock with an industry upgrades from underperformance. The shareholdings of the American electric vehicle corporation rose by more than 740 percent in 2020 thanks to solid sales growth, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index, and increased enthusiasm on Wall Street. In the last three months, it has risen by 78 percent compared to 10 percent growth in the S&P 500. Meanwhile, Amazon’s shares rose by 1.78 percent to $3,194.33.

Musk, who started 2020 with a valuation of about $27 billion, saw his fortune grow by an incredible $150 billion, suggesting a sharp financial reversal for the vocal billionaire. This is claimed to be the fastest bout of wealth formation in history.

The South African-born engineer has benefited from a large Tesla-based rally, which controls 20 percent of the automaker’s shareholding. In comparison, it already has about $42 billion of unrealized paper gains on the equity options it earned in 2012 and 2018. Adding to that, Musk currently owns a controlling stake in Space-X, paying around $15 billion.