Elon Musk World’s Now World’s Richest Man

Move aside, Jeff Bezos, as Elon Musk is now the world’s richest man. At least according to CNBC.

His net worth is now $185 billion, thanks to increases in Tesla’s share price.

Musk started last year with $27 billion and was barely in the top 50 of the world’s richest people. So, unlike most of us, Elon had a good 2020.

This is because Tesla’s share price has increased more than ninefold in that time. The company is now worth more than $760 billion.

While Musk also owns SpaceX and has plenty of other things going on in his career, Tesla is what’s providing all the cash right now.

Yes, Tesla – an automaker that only makes four vehicles, most aimed at luxury buyers – vehicles that have been plagued with reliability issues. An automaker that’s had all sorts of production problems.

Musk’s hype of the brand probably hasn’t hurt – despite his misleading statements about Tesla offering full autonomy – Tesla’s autonomous systems are NOT fully self-driving. He’s prone to controversial statements and has an army of stans ready to defend Tesla against any criticism (god help the poor journo who writes a poor review of a Tesla model or an article even mildly critical of the company).

Tesla doesn’t even need a PR team to get love from the stock market, I guess.

A generous pay package for Musk apparently put him over Bezos, as CNBC notes that Forbes still has Bezos ahead in the horserace.

Whatever man, says I, the auto journo, typing this on a dining-room table that his parents bought when he was in high school, surrounded by old furniture.

Brother Elon, can you spare $100K?

[Image: Elon Musk via Musk’s Twitter account]

 

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