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Elon Musk Just Became $25 Billion Richer In One Day

Elon Musk Just Became $25 Billion Richer In One Day

Tesla share prices rose by 20 percent

Amelia Ward

Amelia Ward

Elon Musk's wealth has increased by a record $25 billion (£17.9 billion) on Tuesday, as his company Tesla's shares surged 20 percent.

The jump took Musk's wealth to a staggering $174 billion (£125 billion), as per Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

Musk has once again narrowed the gap with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who is currently the world's richest person and is worth $180 billion (£129 billion).

Bezos' wealth also rose by $6 billion (£4.3 billion) on Tuesday after Amazon shares increased by 4 percent.

The pair have been swapping the title lately, after it seems some companies appeared to benefit from the pandemic.

PA

It comes after tech stocks dropped sharply from mid February, with investors put off the likes of Tesla through concerns that it would still be some time before it turned out big profits.

Just two weeks ago, Musk lost his title of being the world's richest man, after shares in his electric car company Tesla dropped significantly and wiped $15.2 billion (£10.8bn) from his fortune.

Musk had previously shot past former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to take the world's wealthiest man title, but then slumped back into second place after the Tesla shares dropped by 8.6 percent.

The share price hit - the biggest single day drop-off since September - could have been partially caused by tweets sent out by Musk in which he claimed the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies 'seem high'.

PA

The comments Musk made - an example of how Musk's recent tweets have affected real world financial matters - came after his car company bought up $1.5bn (£1.06bn) in Bitcoin.

Speaking on Twitter to Peter Schiff, a gold investor and stockbroker, Musk said: "Money is just data that allows us to avoid the inconvenience of barter.

"That data, like all data, is subject to latency and error. The system will evolve to that which minimises both. That said, Bitcoin and [another cryptocurrency] Ethereum do seem high."

Musk revealed the Tesla decision to buy up that large sum of Bitcoin was not something he took charge on personally.

Again, speaking on Twitter, he said: "Tesla's action is not directly reflective of my opinion."

He continued: "Having some Bitcoin, which is simply a less dumb form of liquidity than cash, is adventurous enough for an S&P 500 company."

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: tesla, elon musk