Elon Musk has reclaimed the title of world’s richest person after a brief loss to 73-year-old French tycoon Bernard Arnault. The stock price of Tesla Inc. has increased by nearly 70% this year, according to news agency Bloomberg.
The stock has surged about 100 per cent from its intraday low on January 6 as investors pile back into bets on riskier growth stocks amid signs of economic strength and a slower pace of Federal Reserve interest-rate increases. The company has also benefited from more demand for its electric vehicles after cutting prices on several models.
On Monday, Tesla shares surged 5.5 to $207.63 at 4 pm in New York, pushing Musk’s net worth to $187.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk overtook Arnault’s $185.3 billion personal fortune.
The 51-year-old entrepreneur began 2023 with a net worth of $137 billion, making him the first person in history to lose $200 billion from their fortune. This raised concerns that he would struggle to reclaim his title as the world’s richest person. He has been out of the top spot in Bloomberg’s wealth index for more than two months due to a steep drop in Tesla, where he is CEO.
The 51-old-year entrepreneur made his way into 2023 with a net worth of $137 billion, which made him the first person ever to lose $200 billion from their fortune. This also raised concern that he might struggle to reclaim his title as the world’s richest individual. He was displaced atop Bloomberg’s wealth index for more than two months after a steep slide in Tesla, where he’s chief executive officer.
In fact, Musk’s donations last year didn’t impact his net worth. He gave 11.6 million Tesla shares to unnamed charitable causes between August and December, as per a disclosure in February. The stock was worth about $1.9 billion as per the closing prices on the days it was donated.
Also, Tesla investors remained worried that he was devoting too much of his attention to Twitter, which he acquired in October. It is also because, at the same time, his electric carmaker was also facing increasing competition across the industry. In December, Musk said he plans to resign from his post on the social-media platform after he finds someone ‘foolish’ enough to take the job.
He said this month that he may need until the end of the year to stabilize Twitter’s finances before handing it to a new CEO.