Elon Musk now world's wealthiest person, say US media

By AFP | 9 January 2021


Musk. — AFP


SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk, the outspoken and envelope-pushing chief executive of Tesla, overtook Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to become the world's wealthiest person, US media reported Thursday.

Musk is a major shareholder of the electric car company and has benefited from Tesla's surging share price over the last year. CNBC estimated Musk's wealth at US$185 billion.

The distinction is the latest superlative for the South African-born Musk, who leads the aerospace venture SpaceX in addition to Tesla, which has become a pacesetter for the car industry as conventional automakers try to catch up to Tesla's lead in electric autos.

Tesla had a strong 2020 as it ramped up auto production, broke ground on new factories and reported a series of profitable quarters that enabled shares to rise more than 700 percent during the year as it was added to the prestigious S&P 500 index.

Musk has hit a stride after stumbling in 2018, when US securities regulators required the Tesla chief to step down as chairman and pay US$20 million to settle charges he defrauded investors with false claims on Twitter in August about a possible bid to take the company private, which was quickly aborted.

Shares of Tesla Inc jumped as much as 5.6% on Friday, pushing the electric-car maker’s market capitalisation to over US$800 billion for the first time ever and inching closer to the trillion dollar club.

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