• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Elon Musk overtakes Jeff Bezos as World’s richest

Elon Musk overtakes Jeff Bezos as World’s richest

Billionaire business magnate and entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person.

The jump to the World’s richest came after shares of the electric car maker, Tesla, rallied some 4.8 percent Thursday, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.

That pushed Musk’s net worth to $188.5 billion, surpassing Amazon founder, Bezos, who has held the position as the world’s richest for three years.

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Musk is now richer than Bezos with a whopping $1.5 billion.

The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Musk. Over the past year, his net worth soared by more than $150 billion in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history. Fueling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743 percent last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.

Bezos would still hold a wide lead over Musk had it not been for his divorce, which saw him cede about $36 billion worth of Amazon stocks to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and his philanthropy. He had also donated shares worth about $680 million in November.