Christian Shomali / Staff reporter
Elon Musk has recently become the world’s richest person in the world, passing Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos has a net worth of $185 billion, with Elon Musk with a net worth of $195 billion. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/07/musk-worlds-richest-bezos/
Musk started 2020 with $20 billion. Thanks to the Tesla shares skyrocketing in price, he ended the year with $185 billion, giving him more than 9x of his original net worth in the beginning of the year. On January 7th 2021, Musk surpassed Bezos and took his crown as the “World’s Richest Person”.
Musk’s wealth on paper reflects roughly 20% of his stake in Tesla and 48% stake in SpaceX, as well as 57 million vested Tesla stock options, Bloomberg says. Bezos’ net worth largely collects from his 11% stake in Amazon.
Musk made an early fortune with PayPal, which he co-founded and took $165 million of its sale to eBay. He invested in Tesla in 2004, a year after its founding, and maintains around a 20 percent stake in his company. He was named the company’s chairman in 2004, a title he lost in his “funding secured” fiasco in 2018. He became CEO in 2008, a title on which he owns to this day.
Even with Tesla having an incredible rise, Bezos would still be known as the “World’s Richest Person” if it had not been for his divorce, which saw him transfer a quarter of the family Amazon stake to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott. and his philanthropy, who donated shares worth about $680 million in November.
Musk’s growth in his portfolio has grown faster in a year then the net worth of the world’s third richest man, Bill Gates, according to Bloomberg: $132 billion.
Musk’s wealth is largely composed of his stock in the e-commerce giant Amazon, which he founded while remaining chief executive.
After Musk’s news status were published on January 6th, 2021, Musk tweeted “How strange, well back to work”.
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/07/musk-worlds-richest-bezos/