Tesla's Elon Musk Overtakes Amazon's Jeff Bezos as World's Wealthiest Person
08 January 2021 - 6:21AM
Dow Jones News
By Rebecca Elliott
Elon Musk has overtaken Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos as
the world's richest person, driven by a meteoric rise in the value
of Tesla Inc., the electric-car maker he runs.
The bragging rights around personal wealth pit two of the tech
industry's biggest rivals in a competition that spans from the
roads to outer space. Messrs. Musk and Bezos, both founders of
rocket companies, have clashed over issues such as Amazon's power
over book publishing and Mr. Musk's interest in colonizing the
planet Mars. Amazon last year bought a self-driving car startup
that would compete with Tesla.
Mr. Musk's net worth totaled around $181 billion as of market
close Wednesday, up from roughly $30 billion a year ago and about
$3 billion shy of Mr. Bezos's wealth, according to the Bloomberg
Billionaires Index. The value of Tesla's shares rose around 6%
intraday Thursday, enough for Mr. Musk to overtake Mr. Bezos in the
wealth ranking. Amazon's stock was up around 2% at the time. Mr.
Bezos held the top spot for more than three years. Mr. Musk's net
worth rose to $188.5 billion as of 10:15 a.m., topping Mr. Bezos's
by $1.5 billion, according to Bloomberg.
"How strange," Mr. Musk tweeted Thursday about the milestone.
"Well, back to work..."
Establishing the net worth of the world's wealthiest can be
tricky, in part because many of their holdings are private. Forbes,
which also tracks the assets of billionaires, ranked Mr. Musk
several billion dollars behind Mr. Bezos midday Thursday.
Both chief executives have been huge winners during the pandemic
as the shares in their companies rose sharply even as the global
economy was hit by the Covid-19 disease. Amazon's stock is up more
than 60% over the past year, as people flocked to online shopping
and business embraced the kind of cloud-computing services it
offers.
Mr. Musk's wealth is tied largely to Tesla, whose market
capitalization increased by more than 700% in the last year as
investors poured money into electric-vehicle makers. The company is
now the world's most valuable auto maker. Mr. Musk, 49, owned
roughly 20% of Tesla as of year-end 2019, a securities filing
showed.
Mr. Musk also is chief executive of privately held rocket
company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, which
joined with NASA last year to resume human space flight from
American soil after years during which the U.S. relied on foreign
rockets. Bloomberg valued his stake in that venture at around $19
billion.
The South Africa-born entrepreneur doesn't accept a salary from
Tesla and instead is compensated in the form of stock awards when
the company achieves certain milestones tied to items including
Tesla's valuation and revenue. The stock options he became eligible
for last year were worth more than $23 billion as of Wednesday,
according to corporate-governance data company Equilar Inc.
Mr. Musk last year said he had moved to Texas -- a state that
doesn't collect state income or capital-gains tax for individuals.
SpaceX and Tesla have activities in Texas, though both maintain a
large footprint in California.
Tesla, based in Silicon Valley, delivered nearly half a million
vehicles globally last year and is expected to report its first
full-year of profit when it releases 2020 fourth-quarter earnings
in a few weeks. The company in December also was included in the
S&P 500 index.
Write to Rebecca Elliott at rebecca.elliott@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 07, 2021 14:06 ET (19:06 GMT)
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