While Bill Gates slowly rose to wealth starting the 1990s, it seems like another name has just passed him. Elon Musk has now exceeded the Microsoft co-founder in becoming the world's second richest person. This was according to the official Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Elon Musk 2nd richest person in the world
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's current net worth sits at well around $128 billion. This was after the massive increase of a whopping $100 billion just this year. There is now still a pretty sizable gap between Elon Musk and the world's richest man, Jeff Bezos, who currently sits on a net worth of about $182 billion. In January, Elon Musk ranked 35 on the given list according to Bloomberg.
The story reported by The Verge details how Musk's rapid rise on the list has mainly been due to Tesla's increasing share price. The electric vehicle company is currently at a market cap reaching almost $500 billion. This is a huge increase as to its initial $100 billion during the start of this year.
Tesla wins despite size
According to an article by The Guardian, Tesla currently has the highest market cap compared to any other car company in the whole world, despite producing only a fraction of the whole car numbers compared to the more established automakers. Just this year, the EV company expects to be able to produce a whopping 500,000 cars. This is compared to about 10 million for a company just like Toyota.
About three quarters of Elon Musk's total net worth mainly consists of his Tesla shares, according to the report by Bloomberg. Elon Musk also has another major venture, SpaceX, that has recently seen impressive success. Just last week, the company has recently transported four esteemed astronauts straight to the International Space Station aboard the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft which followed the company's very first crewed space flight in May of this year, according to The Verge.
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Bill Gates loses 1st and 2nd place
Bill Gates has actually retained his seat at the top for years on the Billionaires Index and was only overtaken in 2017 by Jeff Bezos. Bloomberg also notes that Bill Gates might have actually had a much higher net worth right now if the billionaire did not initially give much of his money towards charity.
This includes the massive $27 billion that he had donated straight through Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation some time back in 2006. Both Bill Gates and Elon Musk have actually had a few high-profile disagreements just this year. Back in september, Elon Musk stated that Bill Gates actually had no clue about the entire viability of electric trucks.
This was after the Microsoft co-founder stated that electric semi-trucks, as well as electric cargo ships and also passenger jets, might probably never become practical as reported by Gates Notes. Some time earlier this year, Bill Gates told CNBC that Elon Musk should avoid making huge predictions regarding areas that he is not yet familiar with. This was after the known Tesla CEO downplayed the said risk of the whole COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Verge.
Related Article: Tesla and SpaceX Combined Value Now Over $500B: Could Elon Musk's Net Worth Make Him the Next Richest Person?
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
