Elon Musk passes Mark Zuckerberg as world’s third richest person

South African-born entrepreneur now worth estimated $120bn

Elon Musk has passed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as the world’s third richest person following a surge in the price of Tesla shares.

The value of the electric car company has reached an all-time high and has been on a hot streak since it was announced it would be added to Wall Street’s S&P 500 index.

The company’s stock is up more than 490 per cent in 2020 with shares briefly trading at $507.76 on Thursday.

The success of Tesla and SpaceX has moved 49-year-old Mr Musk past Mr Zuckerberg to third place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to their league table Mr Musk is now worth $120bn compared to the social media CEO’s $103bn.

This means that only Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, who is worth $183bn, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates,  who is worth $128bn, are now ahead of him.

The Index says that Mr Musk’s wealth has increased by a staggering $92.4bn in 2020 so far, significantly more than any of this rivals.

The California-based carmaker will be added to the S&P on December 21 which will likely push its worth up even higher.

The South African-born entrepreneur owns 20 per cent of Tesla, and he is due a record bonus of $41.5bn bonus if the company is worth $650bn by 2028.


On Monday Mr Musk’s SpaceX firm managed to dock its Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station and deliver four NASA astronauts as part of its commercial agreement with the agency.