[News Inside] The Eccentric CEO Who Claimed the World's Richest Title After 3 Years

Elon Musk Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

▲Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla [Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] The person who reclaimed the title of the world's richest individual after three years.

It is none other than Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on the 9th (local time), Musk's net worth reached $209 billion (approximately 228 trillion KRW), surpassing Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, to become the world's richest person.

This marks exactly three years and three months since he last held the top spot.

Since October 2017, Bezos had never relinquished the number one position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

On the other hand, at the beginning of last year, Musk's net worth was around $27 billion (approximately 29.5 trillion KRW), barely placing him within the top 50.

Musk's sudden rise to the world's richest title was driven by Tesla's soaring stock price. He chose stock options based on company performance instead of bonuses or salary.

Musk currently holds a 20% stake in Tesla, and his unrealized gains from stock options amount to $42 billion (approximately 46 trillion KRW). He has almost no other assets. Over the past year, Tesla's stock price surged 743%, continuing its rapid rise into this year.

Last year, Musk's net worth increased by more than $150 billion (approximately 164 trillion KRW), which foreign media described as "the fastest wealth increase in history."

In response to this news, Musk tweeted, "What a thing," adding, "Back to work then."

In July last year, Musk surpassed investment legend Warren Buffett to rank 7th among the world's richest, and in November, he overtook Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, to reach 2nd place.

With Tesla's stock price surge, the company solidified its position as the undisputed number one in market capitalization within the automotive industry. Tesla's market cap reached $834.172 billion (approximately 911 trillion KRW), making it more valuable than the combined market caps of the world's top 10 automakers including Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, and General Motors (GM). Globally, Tesla ranked 5th in market capitalization, following Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Tesla set consecutive new records.

On the 2nd (local time), Tesla announced total vehicle deliveries of 499,550 units in 2020, a significant increase from 367,500 units the previous year.

This exceeded the average expected delivery volume of 493,000 units predicted by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Production surpassed 500,000 units for the first time, reaching 509,737 units. Quarterly delivery records were also set at all-time highs.

With Musk overtaking Jeff Bezos, the rivalry between the two is expected to intensify further.

Musk has openly targeted Bezos, stating, "Amazon should be broken up. Monopolies are wrong."

Notably, both share the same goal of "space exploration" and are competing in this field. Besides Tesla, Musk operates the private space exploration company SpaceX, while Bezos runs Blue Origin, his own space exploration company.

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