South African-born tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is now the second richest person in the world, overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
This is according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the Tesla CEO with a $127.9 billion fortune, above Gates ($127.7 billion) for the first time.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people.
According to the index, Musk began the year in 35th place. Market Watch says Musk has profited from the massive surge in Tesla stock, which has skyrocketed more than 520% year to date.
It notes Tesla rose more than 6% to a record close of $521.85 in Monday trading, ending the day with a market cap of around $464 billion. That equated to a $7.2 billion single-day gain in Musk’s net worth.
The index notes Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, with a fortune of $182 billion, according to Bloomberg, up more than $67 billion this year.
Born in Pretoria on 28 June 1971, Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer and engineer. He is founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.
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