How did Elon Musk become the richest man in the world?

The boss of Tesla has just dethroned Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, thanks to the soaring price of the stock market.

He had gradually climbed the stairs, then joined the top 3 of the greatest fortunes in the world in September 2020. The year 2021 looks promising for Elon Musk who has become  the richest man in the world , according to the Bloomberg agency which maintains a ranking of billionaires.

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos is no longer number 1 . The one who holds the title of the richest man on the planet since 2017, ahead of Bill Gates (Microsoft), Bernard Arnault (LVMH) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), has just been caught by the whimsical entrepreneur of 49 years, Elon Musk.

This meteoric rise is explained by the surge in Tesla securities on  Wall Street , in which Elon Musk holds an 18% stake . Tesla stock has seen its value more than 7-fold in 2020. This then allows  Elon Musk  to hold a fortune of 188.5 billion dollars . That of the creator of Amazon, it amounts to 1.5 billion.
Remarkably, Elon Musk refuses his minimum wage of $ 56,000 each year at Tesla. In January 2018, the company announced that it would pay Elon Musk nothing for the next ten years: no salary, no bonus, no shares. 

Rich even richer despite the crisis

The coronavirus pandemic is an economic disaster for most Americans , but not for Elon Musk. Many  billionaires  got richer during the pandemic, but no one earned as much as him. The CEO of Telsa earned more than $ 48 billion between March 18 and August 13, 2020, an increase in his fortune of more than 197% , according to a new analysis by the think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies .

But that’s not all, Elon Musk’s wealth should continue to grow in the months to come. And, thank you  Joe Biden  ? Stock market action has been boosted by the election of Joe Biden, who promises to promote the development of electric vehicles  in the United States. The group’s stock is expected to be included in many financial products systematically, which should give Elon Musk even more weight.