Elon Musk now claims the title as the richest person alive.
The self-made billionaire has a net worth of US$287 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. And the gap between former first place holder Jeff Bezos and Musk widens to around US$100 billion.
Musk anchored his position as the wealthiest man as his automobile company Tesla’s market value broke through the US$1 trillion mark. This is in light of securing an order for 100,000 of its vehicles from Hertz, a car-renter company. Tesla’s shares surged following the announcement and Musk also broken the record for having the biggest one-day gains in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
With the new deal, Tesla joins tech companies Apple, Amazon, Google’s owner Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft as one of the US firms to surpass the trillion-dollar mark. Musk celebrated this milestone on Twitter by send out a tweet that says, “Wild $T1mes!”
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According to CNBC, Musk’s net worth is now equivalent to the market value of the Japanese carmaker Toyota — the world’s second largest automaker which is valued around US$238 billion.
Prior to the deal with Hertz, Tesla had already been performing consistently well. The automaker’s stock prices went up by 40 per cent this year, outperforming the gains of the S&P 500 Index. The traction for Tesla vehicles is a result of increasing emphasis on sustainability.
Governments in many countries have announced a ban on petrol and diesel cars in a bid to meet climate targets. Hertz’s purchase of Tesla vehicles further signals the growing prevalence for electric vehicles in the coming future.
In the United Kingdom, the sales of the Tesla Model 3 was the best selling car in the country. About 6,879 units were sold in September. Similarly in Europe, the same model was also a hit with many making it the first battery electric vehicle to top the monthly sales charts in the region.
Aside from accumulating wealth from Tesla, Musk’s rocket company SpaceX also helped to boost his personal wealth as well as his investments in various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Doge Coin.
Elsewhere, the third in the list of the wealthiest according to Bloomberg is Bernard Arnault. The owner of the largest luxury company in the world, LVMH, has announced its latest quarterly financial results and has reported a 20 per cent increase in revenues.
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