Elon Musk Surpasses Bill Gates to Become Second Richest Person in the World

Elon Musk just after recently pushing past Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the list of the world’s richest people with a net worth of $115 billion to become the third-richest. He has again made it past the Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates at $127.7bn net worth to become the second-richest person in the world just weeks after he passed Mark Zuckerberg.

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The question now is, how did Elon Musk made it past Bill Gates, after beginning the year in 35th place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index? To answer that; Musk’s fortune comes as a result of a massive surge in Tesla stock, which has rocketed more than 500% so far this year. On Monday Tesla stock rose 6.58% to a record close of $521.85. It saw Musk’s fortune grow by $7.2 billion in a single-day.

It means only Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lies now ahead of him in the rankings. His advance up the wealth ranks has been driven largely by Tesla, whose market value is approaching $500 billion. About three-quarters of his net worth is comprised of Tesla shares, which are valued more than four times as much as his stake in Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.

Musk’s milestone marks only the second time in the index’s eight-year history that Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates has ranked lower than number two. He held the top spot for years before being bumped by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos in 2017. 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.

With Monday’s move, 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.

The two have also traded barbs over Covid-19. Gates, whose charitable foundation is one of the preeminent bodies backing vaccine research, has expressed concern over Musk’s stated suspicion of pandemic data and embrace of certain conspiracy theories.

The year has been a lucrative one for the world’s richest people. Despite the pandemic and widespread layoffs that have disproportionately affected the world’s working class and poor, the members of the Bloomberg index have collectively gained 23% — or $1.3 trillion — since the year began.