Elon Musk Is Now The Fourth Richest Man In The World

Elon Musk's recent uptick in fortune continues unabated as he stuck on another $7.8 billion (£5.9bn) to his wealth, making him the fourth richest person in the world.

This is because shares in his electric car company Tesla have surged once again, rising 11 percent on Monday, and closing at a record high.

That stock win saw Musk storm past the former fourth spot incumbent Bernard Arnault, who was previously the wealthiest non-American on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

He's now worth an eye-watering $84.8bn (£64.1bn), leaving him only - seriously, only? - $15bn (£11.34bn) behind Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg - who recently became a centibillionaire - on the list, which tracks the wealth of the top 50 richest people on the planet.

This latest piece of good news for the South African entrepreneur comes just two years after he was sued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and forced to resign from the chairman position at his own car company because of his - let's say - ill-conceived tweets.

Basically, Musk was using his personal Twitter account to announce some stuff that he shouldn't have, and ended up losing his position and $20 million (£15.1m) in the process.

Those days are gone now, and he's headed on up towards the top of that rich list, with Tesla's stock up by 339 percent so far this year.

That's strange, given that nearly everyone else - except Jeff Bezos, Musk and the other billionaires - has had something of a disappointing year.

Furthermore, his space exploration company SpaceX is also about to swell the coffers at Chez Musk.

According to Bloomberg, SpaceX is about to finalise another $2bn (£1.51bn) in funding which would make the equity value of the company $46bn (£34.78bn).

All of this means that Musk has seen his own fortune expand by $57.2bn (£43.24bn) this year, making him the billionaire with the second highest increase in fortune apart from - you've guessed it - Jeff Bezos.

Bezos has cashed in to the tune of $73bn (£55.19bn) in 2020, leaving him sitting at the top of the rich list with a value of $188bn (£142.13bn).

To put that in context, that's just more than $317,391,304 (£239,949,400) each day so far this year.

It seems that the global pandemic hasn't been as tough on some people as it has on others.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: World News, Money, US News, Technology

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is a LADbible journalist and Twin Peaks enthusiast. Despite having a career in football cut short by a chronic lack of talent, he managed to obtain degrees from both the University of London and Salford. According to his French teacher, at the weekend he mostly likes to play football and go to the park with his brother. Contact Tom on [email protected]

@TPWagwim