Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk has become the world’s richest person, as his net worth crossed $185 billion (£136bn).
He was pushed into the top slot after Tesla’s share price increased on Thursday, taking the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
A 6 per cent increase in Tesla shares early Thursday lifted the value of its CEO’s stock holdings by $10 billion (Kshs 1.9 trillion), taking his net worth to about $191 billion.
At that value, Tesla Inc. is now worth more than Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, GM and Ford combined!
Elon Musk reacted to the news with “how strange” remark while replying to a Twitter user sharing the news.
An older tweet pinned to the top of his Twitter feed offered further discernment into his thoughts on personal wealth and how he plans to use the wealth.
A city in Mars
“About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth, and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor-like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves,” it reads,
The tycoon’s fortunes have been buoyed by politics in the US, where the Democrats will have control of the US Senate in the forthcoming session.
The former richest person, Jeff Bezos has also seen his shares by about $3 billion, putting his net worth at $187 billion over the past year thanks to Amazon seeing stronger sales as a result of the coronavirus pandemic driving demand for its e-commerce store and cloud computing services.
However, Bezos gave a 4 per cent stake in the business to his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott after they divorced, which helped Mr Musk overtake him.
Elon Musk was criticized for repeated attempts to keep Tesla’s plant open and then for bringing workers back to work as Coronavirus raged, and cases were even reported inside Tesla’s facilities.
Microsoft founder, Bill Gates is now a distant third at $132 billion, according to Bloomberg.
