Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to be the Second Richest Person in the world

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon Musk has surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to become the second richest man in the world. The net worth of the Tesla CEO now sits at about $128 billion, after growing this year by $100 billion. There is a massive gap between Musk and the number one spot currently occupied by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who has a total reported valuation of about $182 billion. Musk ranked 35th on the list in January, says Bloomberg.

Check out this incredible data visualization created earlier this year in which every pixel represents $1,000 for an understanding of how the income of these men compares to the average American household.

The rapid ascent of Elon Musk in the list was guided primarily by Tesla’s share price. The automotive company currently has a market value of around $500 billion, and for your information, it was below $100 billion at the start of the year.

Though manufacturing a fraction of the cars of more renowned automakers, Tesla has the highest market cap of any car company in the world. It plans to manufacture 500,000 vehicles this year. It is, however, still less in numbers compared to about 10 million for a company like Toyota. According to Bloomberg, about three-quarters of Elon Musk’s net worth consists of Tesla shares.

Recent progress has also been presented by Elon Musk’s other major company, SpaceX. The company transported four astronauts onboard its Crew Dragon spacecraft last week to the International Space Station. It follows the first crewed flight to space by the company in May this year.

For years, Bill Gates sat atop the Billionaires Index until Jeff Bezos overtook him in 2017. Bloomberg states that if he had not contributed too much money to charities, including the more than $27 billion he has donated since 2006 to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates would probably have a greater net worth right now.

This year, Gates and Musk have had several high-profile disputes. In September, after the Microsoft co-founder said that electric semi-trucks, along with electric cargo ships and passenger jets, would “probably never” be feasible, Musk said Gates had no clue” about the feasibility of electric trucks. Earlier this year after the Tesla CEO downplayed the possibility of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gates told CNBC that Musk should stop making big assumptions about areas he is not acquainted with.

Last week, Elon Musk overtook Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg when on the Billionaires Index, he became the third-richest individual. Recently overtaken by French businessman Bernard Arnault, Zuckerberg has now slipped to fifth in the rankings.

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