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..."

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