Elon Musk Is Nearly $10 Billion Richer This Week With Tesla On The Verge Of Joining The...

THE CHANGING FORTUNES OF THE WORLD’S RICHEST

t was another good week for Tesla cofounder and CEO Elon Musk, whose fortune jumped by $9.4 billion as shares of his electric car-maker continued to surge ahead of being added to the S&P 500 Index on Monday.

Tesla’s stock climbed by nearly 8% between Friday, December 11 and Friday, December 18—pushing Musk’s net worth to an estimated $146.3 billion. He is the third-richest person in the world, behind only Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault.

On Friday, the final day of trading before Tesla is added to the benchmark S&P 500 index, the stock rose by as much as 4% to hit a new all-time high before closing just 0.4% higher. Tesla shares are up more than 660% so far in 2020, giving the company a market capitalization of more than $650 billion—making it by far the most valuable car company in the world. That means Tesla will become the seventh-largest company (by market capitalization) in the S&P 500, in what will be the largest rebalancing of the index in history.

The electric carmaker’s stock has risen by nearly 50% since S&P Global announced on November 16that the company would be added to the index on December 21. Musk owns around 21% of Tesla’s stock, plus a stake in private rocket company SpaceX, which he also runs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were up 0.4% and 1.3% for the week, respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index outperformed both, rising by 3.1%. With the stock market finishing higher this week—despite some weakness on Friday—Musk isn’t the only billionaire who enjoyed strong gains.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, saw his fortune rise $4.5 billion this week as Amazon shares rose 2.7%, pushing his net worth up to $186.7 billion, Forbes calculates. Oracle cofounder and chief technology officer Larry Ellison, meanwhile, saw his net worth rise to $88.5 billion—$5.5 billion more than last week. Oracle stock has proved resilient, rising 7.3% since last Friday even as political and legal issues continue to delay the closing of Oracle’s deal to acquire the U.S operations of TikTok.

Another big gainer this week is Chinese billionaire Zhong Shanshan, who is now the 14th richest person in the world, according to Forbes’ estimates. He chairs bottled water company Nongfu Spring and also controls Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy, both of which went public in 2020. Shares of Nongfu Spring rose nearly 14% this week while Beijing Wantai was up nearly 4%, boosting Zhong’s net worth by $7.1 billion since Friday, December 11. His fortune has risen to $69.9 billion, skyrocketing from just $2 billion earlier this year when Forbes published its list of the world’s richest billionaires in April 2020.