SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has officially become the world’s richest person, surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
BBC News reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become the world’s richest person surpassing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Musk, who is CEO of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla and founder of the private space exploration company SpaceX, is now valued at around $188.5 billion USD, about $1.5 billion USD more than Bezos.
Musk responded to a tweet noting his new position as the world’s richest man, very simply calling it “strange.”
Musk took the top spot as the world’s richest person after Tesla’s stock share price went up 4.8 percent late last week. This is the first time that someone has overtaken Bezos as the world’s richest person, a title he has held since October 2017.
Musk and Bezos have been direct competitors on a few occasions in the business world, Musk with SpaceX and Bezos with Blue Origin LLC. Musk saw a huge financial boost in 2020 when Tesla became the most profitable automaker in the world as stock prices rose by 743 percent.
Bezos also saw huge success due to Amazon’s profits last year which were largely bolstered by the uptick in online shopping as many consumers stayed home due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, Bezos’ divorce from his wife MacKenzie Scott stripped him of around a quarter of his stake in Amazon reducing his overall net worth. Bezos’ donations of around $680 million to help fight the pandemic also affected his overall value.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com