Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has surpassed Bernard Arnault to become the world's fourth richest person, Bloombergreports.
Musk cemented himself in the No. 4 spot after his net worth grew by $7.8 billion when shares of Tesla soared 11 percent on Monday. According to a proxy statement obtained by CNBC, Musk has a 20.8 percent stake in the company, which amounts to 38.7 million shares, of which 18.5 million is used as collateral for his personal debt.
Tesla's recent market surge comes amid growing expectations that the company could join the S&P 500 index with its fourth consecutive quarter of reported profitability. Bloomberg reports Tesla has seen shares rise by more than 353 percent this year. All of this is to say that Musk has only reaped the rewards that come with the car company's financial success, accumulating more than $57 billion in 2020 alone.
The Guardian, however, speculates that Tesla's market value has been boosted by non-professional investors who are banking on the company solely based on its name. Analysts from Morgan Stanley warned earlier this year that Tesla was being "grossly overvalued," and share price would eventually plummet, but that hasn't proven to be the case...yet.
Musk's fortune sits at $84.8 billion, which is slightly ahead of the $80.2 billion earned by Arnault, chairman of Louis Vuitton and the wealthiest person in France. He's within $15 billion of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, an interesting fact to keep an eye on since Elon will soon cut into that deficit by $3 billion following Tuesday's announcement that SpaceX raised $1.9 billion in new funding.
Musk remains behind the usual names of Amazon president and CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Zuckerburg, who are first, second, and third, respectively.
