Billionaire Elon Musk was named the richest man on the planet according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His fortune has grown significantly due to a jump in the share price of one of his companies, the carmaker Tesla. Last month, Forbes recognized Musk as the richest man in the world.
By the end of trading on Friday, Tesla's share price was $843.03, up 3 percent for the day. That means the automaker's value has risen about 20 percent since the beginning of the year. This turnaround boosted Musk's fortune to $236 billion, putting him ahead of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with $196 billion. Musk has already responded to a comment from a Twitter user who said that his assets are now roughly equal to $861 billion Dogecoin - a fortune greater than Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined. "Hopefully enough to spread life to Mars," Musk replied modestly.
Bezos often swaps places with Musk in the rankings of the richest people, depending on the stock prices of their companies' securities. After being recognized the richest according to Forbes, Musk slightly poked fun at Bezos, responding to the latter's tweet about Amazon's success with a silver medal emoji, and also said that he would send the real medal to the head of Amazon along with a huge statue in the shape of a deuce. Third and fourth places in Bloomberg's rankings are LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who own $164 billion and $130 billion in assets, respectively. Tesla is due to announce its third-quarter earnings report tomorrow. Wall Street experts forecast revenue of about $13.7 billion and earnings per share of $1.54. According to Wedbush expert Dan Ives, while there are still plenty of skeptics, the evolution of electric vehicles is only in its early stages, and Tesla is at the head of the process. Today, global sales of electric cars account for only 3% of vehicles, and by 2025 their share will reach 10%. At the moment, Tesla's share price has soared even higher, to over $870 per share.
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