Elon Musk passes Jeff Bezos to become world’s richest person

For the first time in three years, there’s a new person sitting on the throne of the world’s richest man.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk beat out Amazon founder and space race rival Jeff Bezos for the crown on Thursday as his electric automaker continued its staggering stock rally.

Musk’s fortune grew to $188.7 billion with Tesla’s shares climbing as much as 5.5 percent to a peak of $801 in morning trading, according to The Post’s calculations. Musk owns 170.5 million shares of Tesla, or 18 percent of the company. 

That put him slightly ahead of Bezos, whose net worth sits just shy of $187 billion with Amazon shares jumping as much as 1.6 percent to $3,189.58 apiece.

The 49-year-old Tesla CEO overtook Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person in 2020.

Musk’s rise has been fuelled by an unprecedented increase in Tesla’s share price which surged 743 percent last year on the back of consistent profits. The company has reported five consecutive quarterly profits. Tesla delivered 499,550 vehicles in 2020, above Wall Street estimates of 481,261 vehicles.

Musk has a 20 percent stake in the company.

The world’s 500 richest people added a record $1.8 trillion to their combined net worth last year despite the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index

Source – https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/01...

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