Elon Musk becomes world's richest person, overtakes Jeff Bezos

Elon Musk has become the world's richest person, surpassing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the world's 500 wealthiest people. 

Musk, who is the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, had a net worth of $188.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than Bezos. The 49-year-old has reportedly benefited from Tesla's stratospheric rise in more than one way.

The surge in share prices of the electric car marker boosted Musk's wealth, helping him surpass Bezos, who is also his rival in the private space race as Bezos is also the owner of Blue Origin LLC, a privately funded aerospace manufacturer.

Elon Musk's dramatic shift in fortunes

Elon Musk has shown one of the most dramatic shift in fortunes in the past year, as he added over $165 billion to his wealth during the time, which is one of the fastest wealth creation bout in history.

The rise in his wealth was majorly fueled by an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged by almost 743 percent last year due to consistent profits. 

The shares of the electric car maker have gained more than 23,900% since its initial public offering in 2010, which includes a 5-for-1 stock split last year.

Musk remains world's second richest on Forbes list

According to Forbes real-time billionaires list,  Elon Musk remains at the second position behind Jeff Bezos with a net worth of around $177.2 billion, while Bezos has $184.6 billion.

Background

Elon Musk has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world's second-richest person in November 2020. At that time, his net worth was around $128 billion. Since then, his wealth showed a steady climb and Tesla's market cap also soared recently. 

Musk had predicted last year that the self-driven Tesla, which is still in the process of being refined, would provide a major boost to the company's market cap.