Tesla Stock Price Rises... Musk Surpasses Bill Gates to Become 'World's 2nd Richest Person'

Musk's Wealth Hits $127.9 Billion... Increased by $100.3 Billion This Year Alone

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Photo by Reuters

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Elon Musk, CEO of electric vehicle company Tesla, has surpassed Microsoft (MS) founder Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world, thanks to the rise in Tesla's stock price.

According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index on the 23rd (local time), CEO Musk's wealth was estimated at $127.9 billion (142 trillion KRW), exceeding founder Gates' wealth of $127.7 billion. With this, CEO Musk became the second wealthiest person in the world, following Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO (wealth $182 billion).

CEO Musk's wealth has increased by $100.3 billion just this year. This is the largest increase among billionaires listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the world's top 500 richest people. As of January this year, CEO Musk was ranked 35th on this index.

The reason for CEO Musk's rapid wealth increase is the rise in Tesla's stock price. Two-thirds of his wealth is Tesla stock. Tesla's stock price was $86 at the beginning of this year but surged to $522 currently. Accordingly, Tesla's market capitalization has approached $500 billion.

Founder Gates, who had held the title of the world's richest person for a while, lost the top spot to Amazon CEO Bezos, whose stock price surged due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now has also lost the second place.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.