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After suffering a beating during the sale of the technology, Elon Musk’s wealth soared to a record $ 25 billion on Tuesday, with Tesla’s shares rising 20%.
The huge leap in the automaker raised the wealth of chief executive and cofounder Musk to $ 174 billion, according to Bloomberg’s billionaire index. This represents an increase of US $ 210 billion played in January, however.
Musk narrowed the gap with Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the richest person in the world, who is worth $ 180 billion. Bezos’ wealth increased $ 6 billion on Tuesday, with Amazon’s shares up nearly 4%.
The billionaires’ wealth in technology soared in 2020, as the monetary and fiscal stimulus spurred a recovery in companies that seemed to benefit from the pandemic.
Even so, technology stocks plummeted sharply in mid-February, with rising bond yields driving investors away from companies that have not yet yielded much profit.
Tesla, which investors think will take years to generate big profits, was particularly hard hit, falling more than 35% from its peak in late January.
Bond yields fell on Tuesday and investors took the opportunity to “buy the drop” in technology stocks.
Tesla’s shares soared 19.64% to $ 673.58, its biggest rise in more than a year, adding more than $ 100 billion in value. Musk owns more than 20% of the company, which helped his net worth to skyrocket $ 25.1 billion in his biggest gain in a day, according to Bloomberg.
This meant that Musk’s wealth had increased by $ 4.35 billion in 2021 so far, during a volatile period for Tesla’s shares.
Bezos’ wealth fell $ 10.3 billion in the year, the Bloomberg index showed. Amazon fell slightly over the year as investors moved away from companies that performed well during COVID-19 and bought those that would benefit from the reopening of savings.
Microsoft’s Bill Gates is the third richest person, with a total net worth of $ 137 billion. Louis Vuitton mogul Bernard Arnault is fourth, while Mark Zuckerberg is fifth.
Tesla’s share price is also linked to bitcoin, after the automaker bought $ 1.5 billion in January. Bitcoin has rebounded dramatically in the past few days, from a fall to less than $ 44,000 in late February, to $ 55,000 on Wednesday.