LONDON: Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of electric car company Tesla has leapfrogged Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and has now acquired the position of the third-richest person in the world.
Elon Musk’s balance increased by more than $15bn (£11.3bn) in a single week after Tesla’s shares jumped 13% following the news of its selection to join the S&P 500 index of leading US companies.
Musk, who owns 20 percent of Tesla’s shares and founded rocket company SpaceX, has experienced a rise of about $90bn in his fortune so far in 2020.
According to media reports, Tesla has the highest market value of any car company across the globe – ahead of Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors – despite making just a fraction of the number of vehicles.
Though, the news was bittersweet in the series of events this week, where Elon took to Twitter to announce that he tested both positive and negative for COVID-19 this week, having taken 4 tests.
“Something enormously bogus is going on. Was tested for the virus four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD,” he posted.
Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2020
While we’re not sure if he’s Covid-negative or positive, we are sure that the only two people richer than Musk are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with a fortune of $184bn and founder of Microsoft Bill Gates with $129bn, who donated more than $50bn in charity.
