Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates as second-richest person in the world

Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to become the second-richest person in the world after his net worth rose by $100BILLION in a year – a five-fold increase to a total $127.9bn – after Tesla shares prices soared 500%

  • Elon Musk added more than $100 billion to his net worth this year to $127.9bn
  • He has passed Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person at $127.7bn
  • Musk’s fortune comes as a result of a massive surge in Tesla stock, which has rocketed more than 500% so far this year
  • On Monday Tesla stock rose 6.58% to a record close of $521.85
  • It saw Musk’s fortune grow by $7.2 billion in a single-day
  • Musk began the year in 35th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index 

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has overtaken Bill Gates to become the second-richest person in the world just weeks after he passed Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest.

It means only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lies now ahead of him in the rankings. In January he ranked 35th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musks’ wealth soared after his electric car company Tesla was selected to join the S&P 500.  

Tesla will enter the S&P 500, a stock market index that measures the performance of 500 large companies listed on the US stock exchange, on December 21 after it failed to make the cut back in September. 

Elon Musk has added more than $100 billion to his net worth this year to reach $127.9bn

Musk passed Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person at $127.7bn

Musk passed Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person at $127.7bn

The 49-year-old’s net worth soared $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion, driven by a surge in Tesla’s share price, according to Bloomberg.  

The South African-born billionaire owns a 20 per cent stake in Tesla, which has seen its share price rise more than five-fold so far this year.

This year has been a wildly successful year for Musk – who saw his rocket company SpaceX send four astronauts into space earlier this month, fulfilling its first commercial contract with the US space agency Nasa.

This year alone the Musk has seen his fortune grow by $100.3 billion. 

About three-quarters of Musk’s net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. 

Tesla's share price has soared more than 500% so far in 2020 which has contributed vastly to Musk's wealth

Tesla’s share price has soared more than 500% so far in 2020 which has contributed vastly to Musk’s wealth

Bloomberg Billionaires Index – Top Ten  

1 Jeff Bezos $182B Amazon.com

2 Elon R Musk $128B Tesla / Space X

3 Bill Gates $128B Microsoft

4 Bernard Arnault $105B LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton

5 Mark Zuckerberg $102B Facebook

6 Warren Buffett $86.8B Berkshire Hathaway 

7 Larry Page $81.3B Google co-founder

8 Sergey Brin $78.7B Google co-founder

9 Steve Ballmer $76.1B Microsoft

10 Mukesh Ambani $74.0B India Energy

As it stands, Tesla is already the most valuable car maker in the world, despite making a fraction of the number of vehicles that are churned out by more established manufacturers such as General Motors, Volkswagen, Ford and Toyota. 

Tesla is now valued at more than Disney, Toyota and Coca-Cola and has a market cap of almost $500billion.

To be eligible to join the S&P 500 a company must be based in the US, have a market capitalization of at least $8.2billion, be liquid and at least half of its shares must be available to the public, according to CNN. Companies must also report four straight quarters of profit.

Tesla reported its fifth consecutive quarter of profit with third-quarter revenue of $8.77billion. 

Musk’s position at number two means Bill Gates is pushed into third for only the second time in eight years. 

Gates was bumped off the top spot which he had held for years, by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos in 2017.    

Gates’s net worth of $127.7 billion would be far higher were he not to have donated  so much to charity over the years.