Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world, passing Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

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2020 was a massive year for the lauded tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk. At the start of 2020, Musk wasn’t even in the top five wealthiest people on the planet. 12 months later and Elon is on top of the world with a net worth estimated at $194.8 billion, followed by Jeff Bezos with $185.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.

In light of this news, Elon Musk sent two tweets saying “How strange” and “Well, back to work…“

While most countries faced recession, Elon Musk’s fortune grew exponentially. In 2020 only, he added a staggering $150 billion to his wealth. A huge chunk of that was because of his shares in his electric-vehicle company, Tesla. Tesla’s shares increased by almost 740% in 2020. He also owns a 48% stake in SpaceX, but that is still far from what he earns from his 20% stake in Tesla. Musk has several smaller investments in many other ventures, but the returns there are not that impactful on his overall fortune. 

Musk’s stock stash growth got a major boost after signing his 10-year compensation package with Tesla in 2018. By doing so, Musk tied his earnings with Tesla’s stock price. Every time the company hits a major milestone, he gets an astonishing amount of stock options. As a result of that, earlier this year, Musk received stocks worth $800 million. 

One of the reasons why Tesla’s stock skyrocketed in 2020 was because Musk managed to pull out the company from what everyone called “production hell.” Furthermore, Musk managed to increase the sales of its electric cars dramatically. The Model Y SUV and the Model 3 Sedan turned out to be a blockbuster hit on the market and significantly impacted the overall sales.  

Furthermore, the help from the so-called retail investors poured a lot of faith and subsequently their money into Tesla’s story. In contrast, Wall Street seemed somewhat more cautious and not that enthusiastic. 

In 2020, Tesla produced 499,550 vehicles, missing the milestone of 500,000 only by a small margin. Nevertheless, many still see this as an incredible accomplishment.

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Editors’ Recommendations:

• Tesla now has a standard range Model Y, and it’s a whole lot cheaper
• At one point, Elon Musk considered selling Tesla to Apple, but Tim Cook wasn’t about it
• Elon Musk is “highly confident” that SpaceX will take people to Mars by 2026
• Jeff Bezos has donated $684 million worth of Amazon stock to non-profits

Deep Ballu