Elon Musk Becomes World's Richest Person Again

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk has regained his title as the world’s richest person after a surge in the luxury electric car maker’s stock price, according to Bloomberg billionaires Index.

The fortune of Musk, which is mainly tied to Tesla, was estimated to be around $187.1 billion as of Monday after markets closed. Musk was in top spot since September 2021 until he lost the title to Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brand LVMH, in December last year. Arnault is now in the second place with $185.3 billion fortune as of Monday.

Tesla’s stock was up about 100 percent on Monday from its recent low on January 6, and stock gained nearly 70 percent this year, Bloomberg noted. Tesla closed Monday’s regular trading at $207.63, up 5.46 percent from the previous close.

Meanwhile, Forbes billionaires list still shows Musk, who also serves as CEO of SpaceX and Twitter, in the second spot with Arnault keeping his top place.

The car company, whose largest individual shareholder is Musk, has been showing strength recently amid the signs of economic recovery along with demand growth for its electric vehicles after the recent price cuts on several models.

In its recent fourth quarter, Tesla’s profit jumped around 59 percent to $3.7 billion, with a 37.2 percent rise in revenues to $24.32 billion.

Tesla stock had lost much of its value last year due to a sell-off following Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of troubled social media platform Twitter, along with weakness in tech market.

During the acquisition procedures and after completing the deal on October 28 last year following months of legal battle, Musk had sold billions worth of his Tesla stock, mainly to meet the purchase price. While selling around $7 billion worth stake in Tesla in August last year, Musk had stated that the move was to avoid an emergency sale of its stock in the event of a forceful Twitter deal.

Tesla shares were trading at $340.79 on April 13, the day before Twitter revealed that Musk made a hostile bid. Tesla shares continued to fall since then and its stock in December last year traded below the $160 mark, following which Musk lost his crown as the world’s richest person.

Meanwhile, after the Tesla sell-off in December last year, Musk also gained Guinness World Records for the largest loss of personal fortune ever. He became the first person ever in history to lose $200 billion in wealth, after his net worth fell to $137 billion in December 2022 from around $340 billion in November 2021.

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