Elon Musk now world's second richest person, overtakes Bill Gates

Elon Musk

Tesla and SpaceX head, Elon Musk, 49, is now the second richest person in the world, surpassing Microsoft mogul Bill Gates – a mere week after Musk surpassed Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to take the third spot on November 18.

Tesla's stock price surge added $7.2 billion to Musk’s $127.9 billion wealth, as per the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index (BBI). His consecutive leaps up the ladder have been led by Tesla’s stock price surges after it was announced that the automaker would be added to the S&P 500 in December.

This is also a notable move on the list for Gates, who has only once before slipped below the second spot. For the longest time, till Amazon’s Jeff Bezos took the top spot in 2017, Gates held the top spot unchallenged.

On Twitter, Musk has taken jibes at Gates for having “no clue” about electric trucks, while Gates has expressed concern at Musk’s acceptance of COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

Musk has added $100.3 billion to his personal wealth in 2020 – the highest compared to anyone else on the BBI. For reference, he was the 35th richest in January. The times have been unfair, with the world's richest gaining a combined 23 percent or $1.3 trillion in wealth since January while the pandemic has left the world's working class and poor unemployed.

Tesla itself is now close to $500 billion in value. Based on its market value, the electric car maker would be one of the top 10 companies in the benchmark index upon entry. S&P Dow Jones Indices said Tesla would be one of the largest companies added to the S&P 500 in the past decade. The company said it was considering adding Tesla in two stages on December 14 and 21.

Tesla's inclusion in the widely-followed stock market index means investment funds indexed to the S&P 500 will have to sell about $51 billion worth of shares of companies already in the S&P 500 and use that money to buy shares of Tesla, so that their portfolios correctly reflect the index, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. Tesla will account for about 1 percent of the index.

SpaceX, on the other hand, successfully launched four astronauts into space for NASA on November 15 – these astronauts reached the International Space Station (ISS) on November 17.