Elon Musk is now officially the world’s richest person after he overtook Jeff Bezos.
Bloomberg reports that a 6% rise in Tesla shares early Thursday lifted the value of its CEO’s stock holdings and options by $10 billion, taking his net worth to about $191 billion.
For Bezos, a rise of less than 2% in Amazon shares lifted him to about $3 billion, putting his net worth at $187 billion.
Bill Gates is now third at $132 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Musk is also the primary shareholder and CEO of SpaceX, though SpaceX is privately held, so its value does not fluctuate as much as the value of Tesla.
Bezos’ stake in Amazon shares increased by $75 billion in 2020, to $173.3 billion, given the huge increase in sales driven by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But that was nothing compared to Musk’s holdings in Tesla. The 170 million shares of Tesla he already owns increased in value by $106 billion during 2020, as shares shot up 743% during the course of the year.
