Elon Musk Overtakes Bill Gates To become World’s Second Richest Man
Tesla CEO, 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 that only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lies now ahead of him in the rankings. In January he ranked 35th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
According to the Blomberg Billionaire Index, Elon’s net worth hit a high on Monday as share prices continued its surge from $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion and with the company’s inclusion in the S&P 500 index raising stock value close to $500Billion. Meanwhile, Gates stocks also moved from $67.3 billion to $127.7 billion which puts him in the third spot.
Musk re-emphasized back in 2006 that his goal was to;
”Build sports car. Use that money to build an affordable car. Use that money to build an even more affordable car. While doing above, also provide zero-emission electric power generation options.”
He also predicted that self-driving Tesla s, which are still a work in progress would be a game-changer in the automaker industry, and in July of 2020, his company’s market capitalization surpassed Toyota’s for the first time.
Gates on the other hand has given as much as $45.5 billion to charitable causes, including the eponymously named Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which would have made him an even bigger billionaire.
Musk and Gates have had a somewhat chaotic year with the business magnates having differing views on important issues. Gates in early August referred to electric cars in a blog post as “never be a practical solution” for replacing trucks and long-haul vehicles, while Musk’s replied to him via his Twitter handle saying that “he has no clue” about electric trucks. Musk has further gone on to call Gates a “knucklehead” for criticizing his efforts on conducting coronavirus antibody studies.
Musk’s net worth is not solely down to a large stake in Tesla, but also to his other companies, space exploration group SpaceX, and infrastructure and construction firm The Boring Company.
