Elon Musk To Overtake Zuckerberg As Third Richest Person

Soaring Tesla stock means maverick Elon Musk could soon become the third richest person in the world.

Shares in Tesla have risen by more than 13 percent, after the electric car maker opted to join the S&P 500 index of leading US companies.

This share price was on top of the 500 percent share price rise of Tesla stock so far this year, all of which has helped propel the fortunes of both Musk and Tesla, which is currently the most valuable car maker in the world – by some margin.

Musk Fortune

The latest Tesla share price rise has added another $15bn (roughly £11bn) to Musk’s fortune, valuing his net worth around $117bn.

This means that Musk, at the tender age of 49, is now third on the league table of the world’s richest people.

His net worth is now greater than Mark Zuckerberg who had the age of 36, is worth just $106bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk had been just behind that with a net worth of $102bn, but that was before the latest Tesla share price rise on Monday and Tuesday.

Of course, the world’s richest man is still Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, worth a staggering $184bn. In second place is Microsoft’s Bill Gates, now only worth $129bn after his frequent charity donations – Gates has donated more than $50 billion to help fight disease and poverty.

Musk owns 20 percent of Tesla, and his fortune this year has rocketed up by $90 billion so far.

If Tesla’s share price continues to rise, Musk could be eligible for bonus deal that will pay him a hefty $55.8bn.

Bankruptcy near miss

It is a remarkable turnaround for Tesla and Elon Musk.

Earlier this month Musk admitted that Tesla was about a month from bankruptcy in mid 2017.

Elon Musk also may be ill after he took to Twitter at the weekend to warn that he may have coronavirus.

He said two tests came back positive but two other tests came back negative.