Elon Musk just became the world’s richest person, snagging the title away from Jeff Bezos by only 1 billion American dollars. Yawn.
Tesla stock passed $800 per share Thursday after a year of dramatic stock gains, thanks in part to the company finally becoming profitable. Since Musk’s wealth is tied to Tesla stock, that means his own personal value increased, too. Though he began the year only worth $27 billion (LMAO!), his net worth on Thursday hit $185 billion.
That was enough to overtake previous richest man/fellow cartoonish billionaire Jeff Bezos. The Amazon CEO’s net worth, tied to Amazon stock, was $184 billion as of Thursday.
Bezos became the richest person there has ever been in 2018 when he passed Bill Gates with a net worth of $150 billion. That figure sounds positively modest in retrospect, since Bezos’ wealth (and that of other tech CEOs) has only increased amid the pandemic.
Musk seemed somewhat bemused by the news. When a Tesla owners group tweeted about his new standing, he responded “how strange.” And then, in response “Well, back to work…”