Tesla’s stock hits record high, Elon Musk becomes the world’s richest man
Musk’s increase in net worth follows a surge in Tesla’s stock which recorded more than eight times over the past year
Tesla Inc founder and CEO, Elon Musk managed to rank first on the list of the world’s richest people with assets of up to US $ 195 billion or equivalent to Rp. 2,738 trillion. With this fortune, he made it past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos by a fortune difference of US $ 1 billion, according to a Bloomberg Billionaire Index report. Musk’s increase in net worth follows a surge in Tesla’s stock which more than doubled over the past year. This immediately made Tesla the most valuable electric car company in the world.
In 2020, Tesla will produce around 500 thousand units of electric cars. This number is even lower than similar vehicle manufacturers such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. However, the market value of these products is able to penetrate US $ 773.5 billion or greater than Facebook Inc. Musk’s Tech currently owns a 20% stake in Tesla and about $ 42 billion in other unrealized gains on private stock options. Tesla shares rose 7.4% in trading Thursday (7/1) at a record high of US $ 811.61. Meanwhile, when referring to The Forbes Billionaires List, Musk’s wealth still lags behind Jeff Bezos by a difference of US $ 7.8 billion. Bezos has been the world’s richest person since 2017. Forbes has a more conservative estimate based on Tesla shares that are pledged against personal loans. Musk, who once co-founded Internet payments company PayPal Holdings Inc, is currently leading some of the world’s futuristic companies. As well as Tesla, he heads the rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup developing high-bandwidth brain machine interfaces to connect the human brain to a computer. He founded the Boring company to tunnel under congested city streets with an all-electric public transportation system to avoid the severe traffic jams in US cities.
Apart from Elon Musk, another richest person in the spotlight is Chinese billionaire Zhong Shanshan. he was ranked first the richest person in Asia. The bottled water entrepreneur’s wealth surpasses Alibaba founder Jack Ma (US $ 50.6 billion) and Indian Reliance Industries founder Mukesh Ambani (US $ 76.6 billion). Based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhong has a wealth of US $ 77.8 billion or equivalent to Rp. 1,080 trillion in 2020. He is also ranked as the 11th richest person in the world, under Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Shanshan’s wealth is supported by the performance of bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Chinese pharmaceutical giant Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise which produces hepatitis vaccines and test kits. Meanwhile, Jack Ma is under pressure from Chinese policies. Beijing asked Ma to overhaul the business of Ant Group, an Alibaba affiliate, and focus solely on the financial technology (fintech) payments business
