Elon Musk eclipses $200 billion to become richest person in the world

Headlines 16:59 28 Sep, 2021

Elon Musk became the third person to ever be worth $200 billion on Monday, riding a surging Tesla stock that in turn made him the richest person in the world

Elon Musk eclipses $200 billion to become richest person in the world

Elon Musk became the third person to ever be worth $200 billion on Monday, riding a surging Tesla stock that in turn made him the richest person in the world, Qazet.az reports citing Forbes.

His milestone feat follows Amazon founder and space rival Jeff Bezos, who first reached the $200 billion mark in August 2020, and luxury magnate Bernard Arnault, who did so for a short time last month. Shares of Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla continued a four-month rally, closing up 2.2% at $791.36, the highest they’ve been since February this year. Musk became $3.8 billion richer on Monday and was worth $203.4 billion at the close of markets. He surpasses Bezos, whose fortune fell by $1 billion Monday to $197.7 billion due to a 0.6% decline in Amazon stock.

Musk is even richer now than he was at Tesla’s peak in January—when he briefly became the world’s richest tycoon for the first time—because he’s received additional stock option grants that have increased his stake in Tesla; he has about 73.5 million Tesla options worth about $53 billion. Musk owns more than one-fifth of Tesla; Forbes discounts a portion of this stake to account for shares he has pledged as collateral for loans.

Musk’s fortune is heavily tied to his ownership of Tesla, which ended the day Monday with a market cap of more than $792 billion, and SpaceX, which was valued at $74 billion after a funding round in February. After promising last year that he would ditch almost all his personal possessions, including six mansions, he now owns one house and counts his primary residence to be a 400-square foot rental unit.