Elon Musk passes Jeff Bezos as world's richest person

[Shawn Knight]

The big picture: Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk has surpassed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest person in the world. Bezos has been at or near the top of the list for several years now, most of his wealth owing to his stake in Amazon. Musk, meanwhile, has seen his net worth swell substantially over the past year due to the skyrocketing share value of Tesla.

One year ago to the day, Tesla closed at a value of $93.81. As of writing, share value in Musk’s electric vehicle company is up nearly seven percent on the day and is trading at $807.09. The rally was enough to push Musk ahead of Bezos according to Bloomberg and its Billionaires Index, which ranks the world’s top 500 wealthiest people.

Bloomberg said that as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern, Musk's net worth was at $188.5 billion.

As CNBC highlights, Musk’s rise over the past year has been nothing short of incredible. According to the publication, he has gained more wealth during the trailing 12 months than Bill Gates’ entire net worth of $132 billion.

In response to the development on Twitter, Musk simply said “How strange” and followed it up with, “Well, back to work…”

About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth & 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 & we destroy ourselves

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2018

In 2018, Musk said roughly half of his money was intended to solve issues here on Earth while the rest will be used to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars.

Image credit Alex Gakos, lev radin

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https://www.techspot.com/news/88204-elon-musk-edges-jeff-bezos-world-richest-person.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I've been in Tesla since 2012 as a shareholder and more recently, prior to the "split" I convinced lots of viewers to buy the stock. It's been nothing but up, up up and my viewers love my returns.

I was shocked to see it blow up so quickly and blow through $750 to $804.

But it's obvious why Tesla has outperformed Bitcoin and most other tech stocks. The Model 3 and Model Y are huge sellers and they have a new model (smaller) coming in China, as well as the Cybertruck and the Semi trucks.

You put your money into Tesla for long-term gain. You dare not short it.

This stock is one of the few you should be building your retirement with. Shorting it is a horrible idea.

 

[netman]

Who Freaking Cares....?!

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Who Freaking Cares....?!

Apparently not even the man himself:

 

[Uncle Al]

Long term investment? Seriously?

 

[terzaerian]

I've been in Tesla since 2012 as a shareholder and more recently, prior to the "split" I convinced lots of viewers to buy the stock. It's been nothing but up, up up and my viewers love my returns.

I was shocked to see it blow up so quickly and blow through $750 to $804.

But it's obvious why Tesla has outperformed Bitcoin and most other tech stocks. The Model 3 and Model Y are huge sellers and they have a new model (smaller) coming in China, as well as the Cybertruck and the Semi trucks.

You put your money into Tesla for long-term gain. You dare not short it.

This stock is one of the few you should be building your retirement with. Shorting it is a horrible idea.

Anyone that's bothered to do any research on Tesla knows it is, as companies go, a circus that manages to just legally fulfill its obligations to the point they can't be prosecuted for being a scam. I don't feel great personal animosity towards him, but most of Musk's big vaunted ideas are just repackaging of old ideas as well, some of which are blatantly scams (see Thunderfoot's tirades on the Hyperloop, for example). That you think it compares favorably to and has greater staying power than the revolutionary technology of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is pretty funny.

 

[Lionvibez]

Just to be clear this is net worth.

I've seen some people online thinking musk can just go to the bank and pull out 50 billion lol.

 

[p51d007]

Bezos says "Good! Maybe they will lay off me for being so rich, and go after him for
a while!" LOL

 

[Vanderkaum037]

Guy with money-losing company passes guy whose company just started making money to become world's richest person.

 

[QuasiLee]

Long term investment? Seriously?

Yes, I bought $2500 at IPO, sold some to invest in nVidia etc. at one point, and after the split I own 675 shares, a nice cool $550k. I plan to buy a Tesla soon for personal use, as it is the best eVehicle out, so, yes, it is a hold and/or buy in my books....

 

[QuasiLee]

Guy with money-losing company passes guy whose company just started making money to become world's richest person.

Well, IMHO, eVehicles are the future and Tesla has the best and is selling as much as it can make. The reason they WERE losing money is that they are/were building up manufacturing capability. Tesla is this centuries Ford/GE/Boeing. I see a bright future...

 

[yeeeeman]

At least he deserves it compared to bezos...

 

[QuantumPhysics]

At least he deserves it compared to bezos...

Bezos filled a need and benefited from people’s laziness.

I started investing in Amazon when I realized they had taken over the student college book industry.

I never imagined they’d grow like they did.

 

[wiyosaya]

Yes, the man who thinks fart sounds for turn signals are cool tops the world's richest list. Just goes to show that Abraham Lincoln was right, IMO,

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Anyone that's bothered to do any research on Tesla knows it is, as companies go, a circus that manages to just legally fulfill its obligations to the point they can't be prosecuted for being a scam. I don't feel great personal animosity towards him, but most of Musk's big vaunted ideas are just repackaging of old ideas as well, some of which are blatantly scams (see Thunderfoot's tirades on the Hyperloop, for example). That you think it compares favorably to and has greater staying power than the revolutionary technology of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is pretty funny.

IMO, a better investment with far less risk is FSDAX. Tesla will be facing significant competition in the not too distant future.

Bezos filled a need and benefited from people’s laziness.

I started investing in Amazon when I realized they had taken over the student college book industry.

I never imagined they’d grow like they did.

I think Bezos invented the finance industry's "Fake it till you make it" strategy by loosing money all those years.

 

[wiyosaya]

Just to be clear this is net worth.

I've seen some people online thinking musk can just go to the bank and pull out 50 billion lol.

You mean Musk just cannot reach into his rear and pull out $50 billion like he does with his ideas??? Shocking. /s

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

IMO, a better investment with far less risk is FSDAX. Tesla will be facing significant competition in the not too distant future.

Today Tesla does face significant competition in China, and it is still winning... In fact everyone thinks about this wrong. Tesla IS the competition and has been challenging incumbent automakers for the last 10 years, eating their lunch. Tesla isn’t just coming up with customers out of thin air, these are car buyers that would have purchased a vehicle from Toyota or GM or something. They’re at 500k vehicles this year and in only a few short years will be at a couple of million vehicles. That’s exactly how many car buyers that will be taken from everybody else. When other competitive vehicles come onto the landscape, it’s going to be other automakers that are part of the losers...

That said I agree that Tesla is a risky investment. I diversified half my money into other stocks with positive returns. My portfolio has since grown to be 90% TSLA by itself and I’m not making the same mistake again. The lesson here is the greatest risk is not buying TSLA, but selling it.

 

[wiyosaya]

Today Tesla does face significant competition in China, and it is still winning... In fact everyone thinks about this wrong. Tesla IS the competition and has been challenging incumbent automakers for the last 10 years, eating their lunch. Tesla isn’t just coming up with customers out of thin air, these are car buyers that would have purchased a vehicle from Toyota or GM or something. They’re at 500k vehicles this year and in only a few short years will be at a couple of million vehicles. That’s exactly how many car buyers that will be taken from everybody else. When other competitive vehicles come onto the landscape, it’s going to be other automakers that are part of the losers...

That said I agree that Tesla is a risky investment. I diversified half my money into other stocks with positive returns. My portfolio has since grown to be 90% TSLA by itself and I’m not making the same mistake again. The lesson here is the greatest risk is not buying TSLA, but selling it.

I am sure you do realize that most other car manufacturers do not make strictly EVs at this point, yes? Yes, there are a few, but not many. And you also realize that those manufacturers have plans to introduce pure EVs in the not too distant future.

Sure, call Tesla the competition if you like, but once the other manufacturers get EVs on the market, I think Tesla will be looking at some formidable competition. As I see it, that is the point when Tesla will either sink or swim. I think it is pretty hard to call Tesla competition when there are so few other manufacturers out there making pure EVs - in essence, Tesla has very little competition ATM as I see it.

 

[DaveBG]

I predicted this many years ago and people laughed at this prediction and here we are here.