Elon Musk makes world’s second richest person, displacing Bill Gates

South Africa’s very own tech entrepreneur, Elon Musk has taken over the second richest person in the world, displacing Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

According to reports by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the Tesla CEO with a $127.9 billion fortune, above Gates ($127.7 billion) for the first time.

Musk is said to have begun the year in 35th place, and Market Watch said Musk has profited from the massive surge in Tesla stock, which has skyrocketed more than 520% year to date. Tesla rose more than 6% to a record close of $521.85 in Monday trading, ending the day with a market cap of around $464 billion. That equated to a $7.2 billion single-day gain in Musk’s net worth, the publication noted.

Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos is still reigning as the richest man in the world, with a fortune of $182 billion, according to Bloomberg, up more than $67 billion this year.

Pretoria born and bred on the 28^th of June 1971, Musk is a business magnate, industrial designer and engineer. He is founder, CEO, CTO and chief designer of SpaceX; early investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink; and co-founder and initial co-chairman of OpenAI.

Main Image: Peaklife