Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has held title of world’s richest person since October 2017, but he’s now been surpassed by Elon Musk whose fortune surged by more than $150 billion in past year.
Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.
A 4.8% rally in the electric carmaker’s share price Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.
The South Africa-born engineer’s net worth was $188.5 billion at 10:15 a.m. in New York, $1.5 billion more than Bezos… The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. Over the past year his net worth soared by more than $150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743% last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.
Bezos would still hold a wide lead over Musk had it not been for his divorce, which saw him cede about a quarter of his Amazon stake to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and his philanthropy.
Despite his astronomical gains, Musk has said he has little interest in material things and has few assets outside his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in an interview last month that the main purpose of his wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution into a spacefaring civilization. “I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said. “That means just a lot of capital.”
MacDailyNews Take: Musk seems to share Steve Jobs’ interest in money:
• When I was 25, my net worth was $100 million or so. I decided then that I wasn’t going to let it ruin my life. There’s no way you could ever spend it all, and I don’t view wealth as something that validates my intelligence.
• Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.
• My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.
How strange
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
Well, back to work …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
i’ve been watching the falcon 9, falcon heavy and starship progress this year ..it’s really impressive and full of risk. the success with the latest starship sn8 was particularly significant, even though it exploded on touchdown. he really is in a league with steve jobs. or nearly
Yes, the most visionary CEO still alive.
“The most visionary CEO alive” that’s been in charge of a company that’s NEVER had a profitable year.
Toyota Motor (TM) alone sold 17 times more cars through November 2020 than Tesla did all year. Tesla lost $862 million last year, while Toyota made $13 billion. Toyota’s stock trades for nine times earnings and pays a dividend yield of 2.7% – more than two and a half times the current yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond.
It’s worth giving reference….
This CEO himself said on Twitter on May 1, 2020, “Tesla stock price is too high [in my opinion].”
The stock staggered for a couple of days after this statement and proceeded to rise unabated.
Also, just in one recent day, the company’s market cap increased by $56 billion – more than two times its annual revenue. It now trades at a vertigo-inducing 25.5 times annual sales.
Please pass the bubble…they’re delicious while they’re on the table.
Tasty Tesla tidbit:
Its market cap, now over $600 billion, amounts to over $1.25 million per car sold each year versus $9,000 per car for GM.
Simply genius.
But no company profit at his peak, and I don’t mean investors (shareholders) on Wall Street. Tesla’s profit where is it?
See Apple at the end of the this month.
Yep, Tesla’s been curiously favored in-spite of the profit dearth. There was a time Amazon/Bezos was the same.
Don’t judge a company (only) by its profits. Apple was industry leader for decades before it actually took off.
He has his on share of warts, like everybody else does. But his greatness comes from his big and silly sounding dreams but he actually EXECUTES his dreams.
…aaaand now as a resident of Texas he’ll be able to keep more of that money!