Elon Musk has edged past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to grab the title of world’s richest person.
Musk is a major shareholder of the electric car company and has benefited from Tesla’s surging share price over the last year. CNBC estimated his wealth at $185 billion.
Bloomberg’s real-time billionaire tracker still has Bezos about $3 billion ahead of Musk. But the tracker doesn’t update until the end of the trading day. Bloomberg posted an article confirming Musk’s title.
Bill Gates is now a distant third at $132 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Tesla is widely seen as a pacesetter for the car industry as conventional automakers try to catch up in electric autos.
Musk caught Gates for the title of the world’s second-richest person in late November, but Tesla shares have increased in value by 45% since then, lifting Musk’s net worth by $53 billion over the past couple months.
Musk is set to qualify for options to buy another 16.9 million shares of Tesla early this year, according to company filings. Those options would be worth $12.3 billion at the shares’ current value, after taking into account the exercise price.
