Around 13:00 on Thursday 7 January, Amazon’s Bezos was still the man of the moment with a fortune of $184 billion. Just a few hours later, CNBC estimated Musk’s wealth at more than $185 billion. 

Not only is Elon Musk the founder and CEO of SpaceX but he’s also the CEO and product architect of Tesla which has ultimately taken him to new heights. 

ELON MUSK RESPONDS TO BEING WORLD’S WEALTHIEST PERSON

Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley took to Twitter on Thursday. Tagging the businessman, it said: “Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world.”

Musk responded by saying; “How strange. Well, back to work”. 

Tesla Owners Online said it was the Elon Musk they all know. 

According to AFP, Tesla had a strong 2020 as it ramped up production, broke ground on new factories and reported a series of profitable quarters and was added to the prestigious S&P 500 index. 

“That enabled shares to rise more than 700% during the year, making it more valuable than the world’s top carmakers combined,” it said. 

Shares of Tesla reportedly surged 6.3% to $803.78 in late morning trading according to AFP, lifting the company’s market capitalisation above $750 billion. 

Musk reportedly holds about 21% of Tesla’s shares, according to a securities filing.

“As you can clearly see, Elon Musk doesn’t care about making all this money. He wants to make a difference and all his net worth is literally in the stock (not his pocket). But classic Elon when seeing something like this ‘Well, back to work'."

A pinned post on Musk’s timeline says: “About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor, like the dinosaurs, or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves”.

The South African