'Is the COVID Recession Someone Else's Problem?' US Billionaires Increased Wealth by 1000 Trillion Last Year... Musk Surpasses Bill Gates

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the American electric vehicle company ranked 2nd in the global wealth ranking.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Eun-young] Despite the impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the wealth of American billionaires increased by more than 1,000 trillion won last year. The person whose wealth grew the most was Tesla founder Elon Musk.

On the 1st (local time), foreign media including The Washington Post reported, citing Bloomberg Billionaires Index, that the wealth of American billionaires increased by 1 trillion dollars (108.8 trillion won) after the COVID-19 pandemic last year.

The person whose wealth increased the most was Tesla founder Elon Musk. His wealth was less than 30 billion dollars in January last year but increased by 132 billion dollars to a total of 159 billion dollars. This means it grew fivefold in one year, and Musk surpassed Bill Gates to rise to 2nd place in the global billionaire rankings. According to Forbes, as of March 2019, Musk's global billionaire ranking was around 31st.

[Image source = Yonhap News]

The undisputed first place was Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose wealth increased by 70 billion dollars to a total of 186 billion dollars. The combined increase in wealth of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos amounts to about 200 billion dollars (217 trillion won), which is equivalent to the combined GDP of 139 countries.

The increase in their wealth was mostly due to the rise in the price of their stock holdings. Tesla's stock price rose eightfold last year. The operation of the Shanghai factory in China, quarterly operating profit surplus, and the favorable demand for electric vehicles acted as positive factors.

Amazon's stock price recorded a 70% increase last year. This was analyzed to be due to the increase in online shopping usage in the U.S. caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing server rental business, also saw increased demand due to the COVID-19 situation.

Meanwhile, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, following the two aforementioned individuals, Microsoft founder Bill Gates ranked 3rd, followed by Bernard Arnault, chairman of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.

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