Tesla co-founder Elon Musk on Monday took over Bill Gates to become the second-richest person in the world as his net worth soared another $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion.
This year, Elon Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people. In January he ranked 35th.
Tesla’s stock rose nearly 6.58 percent on Monday trading to a record close of $521.85, accounting for Musk’s highest single-day gains.
About three-quarters of his net worth consists of only Tesla shares, valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, the Bloomberg report stated.
Gates’s net worth of $127.7 billion would be much higher had he not donated so prodigiously to charity over the years. He has given more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation since 2006.
Musk unseats an occasional verbal sparring partner in Gates, who the Tesla billionaire has ridiculed on Twitter for, among other things, having “no clue” about electric trucks.
