The rise in share price of the electric car-firm Tesla pushed its CEO Elon Musk to become the second-richest person in the world, surpassing Microsoft’s co-founder Bill Gates.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Monday put the 49-year-old entrepreneur, with a $127.9 billion fortune, above Gates at $127.7 billion for the first time.
The wealth gap between Musk and Gate is not huge, therefore, it is possible that the co-founder of Microsoft will regain his position in the coming few days.
Musk started the year 2020 being 35th richest person in the world and since then, he has added more than $100 billion to his net worth, making him one of the fastest-growing among the world’s 500 richest people.
The latest jump in his fortune came as the shares of the electric car-maker Tesla soared and its market cap neared $500 billion on Monday.
Bill Gates’ current net worth is $127.7 billion, and he would have ranked on the top had he not donated so prodigiously to charities over the years. Gates has donated more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, since 2006.
Gates was the richest man for four years running till 2017 when Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos overtook him. Bezos continues to be the richest man in the world with an estimated net worth of $182 billion.