Elon Musk becomes World’s 4th richest man

Elon Musk is now the world’s fourth-richest person after shares in the electric-car maker surged 11% on Monday, closing at a record high and boosting Musk’s net worth by $7.8 billion. Dani Burger reports on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.

“Tesla’s stock jumped 11 percent on Monday, and Musk’s net worth rose to $84.8 billion, making him the fourth richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The Tesla CEO now sits behind Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has a net worth of $99 billion.

Much of Musk’s net worth is tied up in his electric car maker Tesla, which has seen its shares surge more than 300% this year.

The car marker has remained profitable in recent quarters despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Tesla sold more than 179,000 cars during the first half of 2020, outpacing sales for its nearest three competitors in the electric car market combined, according to Electrek.

Earlier this month, Tesla announced a five-for-one stock split, effective Aug. 31, to make its shares more accessible to a wider range of investors.

Musk is also the CEO and co-founder of SpaceX, which made history last month, sending the first NASA astronauts to space from American soil in nearly a decade according to Fox Business.

According to CNBC, SpaceX is in the process of raising nearly $1 billion in funding, which would value the space exploration and defense company at $44 billion.

Musk has also been an outspoken critic of lockdown policies during the Covid-19 crisis.

In a diatribe during a call outlining quarterly results in April, Musk described public health measures to reduce transmission as fascist, and erroneously suggested that anyone leaving their house could be arrested. “This is not democratic,” he said. “This is not freedom – give people back their goddamn freedom.

”Musk’s wealth has boomed despite the backdrop of a series of controversies he has sparked personally, often through Twitter. Musk was sued – unsuccessfully for $190m in defamation damages after making derogatory tweets about a British caver who helped to rescue a football team trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand.

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Elon Musk becomes World’s 4th richest man