Shares of Musk’s electric-vehicle maker Tesla TSLA +7.8% rose by another 8.2% as of 11:30 a.m. EST on Friday, pushing Musk’s net worth up by $12.5 billion, to $189.7 billion. That makes him the wealthiest person on the planet, according to Forbes’ estimates.
Despite a report from Bloomberg earlier this week claiming that Musk became the world’s richest person on Wednesday, by Forbes’ calculations, the Tesla chief didn’t officially take the number one spot until Friday morning. He’s now nearly $5 billion ahead of the former world’s number one, Jeff Bezos, who has a net worth of $185 billion as of 11:30 a.m EST.
Musk initially overtook Facebook FB -0.4% CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who is worth $96.9 billion today) to become the world’s fourth-richest person in early November, then surpassed Microsoft MSFT +0.6% cofounder Bill Gates (worth $122 billion today) for the number three spot. A month later, Musk leapfrogged over French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault (worth $154.8 billion today) to become the world’s second-richest person.
Tesla’s billionaire CEO has added $165 billion to his fortune since March 2020, when he was worth $24.6 billion. Much of that increase is thanks to Tesla’s skyrocketing share price, which rose more than 720% in 2020. It has gained another 20% in the first week of 2021.
