ELON MUSK BECOMES SECOND RICHEST PERSON AFTER PASSING BILL GATES

Billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has done it again. He has overtaken the famous Microsoft genius, Bill Gates, to become the second-richest person in the world.

Only weeks after Musk passed Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world, Tesla shares soared once again, lifting the Tesla founder to number two.

Still in the lead and the world’s richest man is Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.

In January, Musk was ranked 35th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, but his wealth soared after his electric car company, Tesla, was selected to join the S&P 500.  

As reported before, Tesla will enter the S&P 500, a stock market index that measures the performance of 500 largest companies listed on the US stock exchange, on December 21 after failing to make the cut back in September. To be eligible to join the S&P 500, a company must be based in the US, be liquid, have a market capitalization of at least $8.2billion, and half of its shares must be available to the public. Recently, Tesla reported its fifth consecutive quarter of profit, with third-quarter revenue of $8.77billion. 

Driven by three-quarters of Tesla shares, the South African-born billionaire’s net worth soared from $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion and, taking this year alone, his fortune has grown by $100.3 billion. 

2020 has been a huge success for the 49-year-old, Tesla hit a new level, and his rocket company, SpaceX, sent four astronauts into space for the first time earlier this month. SpaceX also fulfilled its first commercial contract with the US space agency, NASA.

Despite making a fraction of the number of vehicles that are sent out by more established manufacturers, such as Volkswagen, Ford and Toyota, Tesla is already the most valuable car maker in the world, valued at almost $500 billion, which is more than Coca Cola or Disney.