Tesla's Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates to become world's second-richest person

Washington: Tesla Inc and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has become the world's second-richest person, surpassing Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates on

Monday.

The 49-year-old billionaire's net worth soared to $127.9 billion, driven by yet another surge in Tesla's share price on Monday.

In January, Musk was at the 35th spot of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index—a ranking of the world's 500 wealthiest people.

His rise on the Index is largely driven by Tesla, whose market value is $491 billion.

Elon Musk added $100.3 billion to his net worth in 2020, more than any other person on Bloomberg's ranking of the top 500 richest people

in the world, Bloomberg News reported.

Elon Musk remains behind Amazons' Jeff Bezos who sits about $182 billion in net

worth.

Gates have held the top spot in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index for years.

However, in 2017, Amazon Inc founder Jeff Bezos briefly surpassed Gates, when the former's net worth swelled to $90.6 billion.

Last year in November, Gates reclaimed the "richest person on earth" title after his net worth surged to $110 billion.

At present, Bill Gates's net worth is $127.7 billion. It would be much higher had he not donated so extensively to charity over the years. He has given more than $27 billion to his namesake foundation since 2006.

Meanwhile, Tesla shares rose 6 per cent on Monday, approaching a $500 billion market value and extending gains to 27 per cent since news a week ago that the electric car maker will debut in the S&P 500 in December.

Up about 500 per cent in 2020, Tesla Inc has become by far the world's most valuable automaker, despite production that is a fraction of

Toyota, Volkswagen, or General Motors.

Tesla is now five times more valuable than General Motors and Ford combined.

It is Wall Street's seventh most valuable company, just behind Berkshire Hathaway and just ahead of Visa.