South African born engineer, Elon Musk, the man behind electronic cars manufacturing company Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the world’s richest person.
Elon surpassed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, Inc., an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, after a 4.8pc spike in the Tesla share price.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Elon’s net worth stood at $188.5 billion (Sh20.7 Trillion) earlier today which was $1.5 billion more than Bezos.
The Amazon founder had held the top spot since October 2017.
The new development would mean that Elon Musk made more than $150 billion in the last year, recording possibly the fastest accumulation of wealth in history.
Elon Musk recently sold 3 California homes for $41 million after vowing to ‘own no house’.
I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 1, 2020
However, Elon doesn’t like to splash his wealth about as he has little interest in material things, in an interview last month he said that the main purpose of his wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution into a spacefaring civilization.
“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said. “That means just a lot of capital.”
In the last year, The world’s 500 richest people added a record $1.8 trillion (31pc) to their combined net worth.
