What is Elon Musk's net worth? A look at Tesla CEO's fortune as he beats Jeff Bezos to become richest man
Billionaire business tycoon Elon Musk is now the world's richest man! Hardly surprising, is it? The good news about the entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc and SpaceX hit social media on January 8, 2021, and as soon as it caught his eye, he dubbed it "strange". The 49-year-old surpassed Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, thanks to a 4.8% rally in the share price. As per recent reports, his net worth touched a whopping $188.5 billion.
A Twitter account called 'Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley' shared the news and it was soon shared by Mus himself. "How strange," Elon Musk responded, and followed it up by saying, "Well, back to work ..." Since then, he has shared many more tweets, one of them being, "Btw, critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems)."
Btw, critical feedback is always super appreciated, as well as ways to donate money that really make a difference (way harder than it seems)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 8, 2021
Earlier, he crossed Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world after his electric car company Tesla was chosen to join the S&P 500. Tesla’s value rose in after-hours trading on Monday, November 16, with funds that closed at $408.09 surging about 14 percent by 6 pm. It certainly should be an eventful few days for Musk since testing positive for Covid-19 and his rocket company launching four astronauts into space.
Tesla will now be entering the S&P 500, a stock market index that ranks the performance of 500 large firms listed on the US stock exchange, on December 21, 2020, after it failed to make the cut back in September, this year.
At that time, Musk’s net worth increased by more than $15 billion in extended trading, lifting his fortune to $117.5billion. Earlier his net worth was $90.8 billion, according to Bloomberg. As of Monday's close Musk was listed as the fourth richest person in the world behind Facebook's Zuckerberg, who follows back Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos on Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. The year 2020 has been a wildly successful year for Musk — who saw his rocket firm SpaceX send four astronauts into space this week. This year alone the 49-year-old has seen his fortune grow by more than $90billion. However, adding Tesla isn’t as easy as it sounds as it will be the largest company ever added to the index, as per CNBC.
"Due to the large size of the addition, S&P Dow Jones Indices is seeking feedback through a consultation to the investment community to determine if Tesla should be added all at once on the rebalance effective date or in two separate tranches ending on the rebalance effective date," S&P said in a statement.
In September 2020 Tesla met the standards to be included in the S&P 500 but wasn’t picked by the committee that concludes which companies make on the list. The S&P is used as a representation of the market and is reshuffled to adequately represent the market and this time Tesla made the cut. As of now, it’s not clear which S&P 500 company Tesla will replace.
Tesla is now valued at more than Disney, Toyota and Coca-Cola and has a market cap of nearly $387 billion. To be eligible to join the S&P 500 a company must be based in the US, have a business capitalization of at least $8.2 billion, be liquid and at least half of its shares must be available to the public, as per CNN. Companies must also report four straight quarters of profit. Tesla reported its fifth following quarter of profit with third-quarter revenue of $8.77billion.