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Elon Musk is Now the Richest Person in the World (cnbc.com) 154

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion. From a report: Thursday's increase in Tesla's share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion. Musk's wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history -- and marks a dramatic financial turnaround for the famed entrepreneur who just 18 months ago was in the headlines for Tesla's rapid cash burn and his personal leverage against Tesla's stock. Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion, and was barely in the top 50 richest people. Tesla's rocketing share price -- which has increased more than nine-fold over the past year -- along with his generous pay package have added more than $150 billion to his net worth.
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Elon Musk is Now the Richest Person in the World More

Elon Musk is Now the Richest Person in the World

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  • Goals (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thelasko ( 1196535 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:01PM (#60906996) Journal
    Musk doesn't want to be the richest person in the world. He wants to be the richest person in the solar system.

    • Re:Goals (Score:5, Funny)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:07PM (#60907012)
      Ah, so that's why he wants to invade Mars and kill all the rich Martians out there? Makes sense.

    • Is it "on paper", in "cash", in boullon, or cryptobits? Not all of those wealth stores can be converted at face value to actual purchasing power.

    • Okay as a joke, and some of the best FPs are, but why plural? Hidden assumption that wealth is Musk's highest priority goal among many? [But market cap is just virtual wealth.]

      Trying to get my own thoughts in order on this topic. Discussions of Musk tend to resemble religious arguments, but Musk's faithful are a strange crowd. They seem to see him as some kind of saint of technology. Next meta-question: How many of Musk's followers used to follow Saint Steven of Jobs? Another locus of similar discussions. B

      • I seem to recall that people who shorted Tesla, in 2020, lost over $20 billion.

        That's with a "b." As in Big Bucks.

        I don't know that I want to bet on Musk; his predictions have a knack of taking a lot longer, than expected, to come true. But I'm not stupid enough to bet against him.

        None of his ideas, in their basic form, are that inventive. Low-pressure tube-based travel was a sci-fi fixture, as were tunnels under major cities, re-usable rockets and electric vehicles. But the execution of those ideas .

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

          The current value of Tesla is more or less equal to pretty much every other car company on earth... combined. That's pure insanity--even through the lens of "long term growth" if you believe such bullshit in this case.

          I'm not stupid enough to short Tesla, either, but not because of any "Elon 4D chess' ideas, but because of the old adage that "the ability of the market to remain irrational far exceeds your ability to remain solvent."

  • American dream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:01PM (#60906998)
    The richest man in the world is an African American and an immigrant!

    • The richest man in the world is an African American and an immigrant!

      I appreciate the sentiment of your comment, but the cold truth is he just isn't black and this is where it matters.

      Most Americans either are immigrants or have ancestors who were immigrants and so most people won't care much for this fact. Most stop caring once somebody has got a job or is rich. Where it could get worse, meaning White Power supporters might appreciate this, is that white people in Africa have their own racist past, see Apartheid. So they might like him for it, because it fits their agenda e

  • It's not inconceivable the Tesla and SpaceX can go up over 5x .. considered Tesla has gone up 500x since IPO, that would make him a trillionaire.

    • Not 500x, perhaps tripping over time. Once Tesla has the factory power to meet demand, and SpaceX has its family of rockets. And Electric Cars are common and coming out of other makers as well with valid options. I see Tesla slowing its growth. Because the market will be more saturated.

      At this moment Tesla is one of the few car brands with multiple models that are all electric and for the United States meets what we consider acceptable range and performance. While the others have smaller range, or poor

    • If SpaceX went public he would zoom way past a trillion overnight. If the upside for electric cars is generating this kind of speculation, SpaceX stock would literally be astronomical.

    • Every time the total purchase power in the market goes up, you own unchanged purchase power becomes a smaller fraction of that. With unchanged total production capacity, that means you just got a pay cut, congratulations!, reasons so cheer!

      And yeah, production capacity may have gone up. But purchase power aka available "money" has gone up more. So people shrug, and go "inflation".
      But actually, wealth and power were stolen from them.
      And that is deliberate too.

  • Bezos (Score:2, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    Bezos would be worth double if he did F around with that news reporter lady and have to get divorced. Anything for love I guess. Except loyalty.

    • In my opinion, the problem here isn't love, commitment, nor even sex drives. The problem here is an outdated framework of laws that regulate property allocation after such relationships end.

      • It's called a prenuptial agreement...

      • Re:Bezos (Score:5, Insightful)

        by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @01:07PM (#60907260)

        Marriage is a contract. If you sign a partnership agreement and start a company .. you take charge of the sales work and your partner handles hiring. Then one day you don't like your business partner anymore .. can you tell your partner that you "did most of the work" and kick him out and keep full ownership of the company?

        A marriage contract is exactly like that. If two people agree on a partnership and various terms for whatever reasons (call it stupid) .. the agreement must be honored.

        • Yes, I understand what it is, and I am saying it doesn't make sense. Not anymore.

          In cases where two people of equal incomes get married, and then later separate, it makes perfect sense that they should both walk away with roughly half of what they have earned.

          In cases where one very rich person marries one very poor person, and the poor person makes hardly any financial contribution to the relationship whereas the rich person makes huge financial contributions, it does NOT make sense that the poor person s

          • What you are saying is that if a poor person signs a partnership agreement with a rich person, the rich person should be able to void that agreement by saying he started off poor? An agreement is only half applicable if someone is poor?

            If you're rich and feel that your partner won't make any meaningful contribution to you, then either ask the poor person to sign a prenuptial agreement before marriage or don't get married at all. It's a serious thing, marriage. Of course divorce is needed when two people gro

          • Marriage isn't a zero sum game. You can't quantify contribution. Sorry.

            • In that context I was talking about financial contribution, which of course can be quantified.

              And even if I concede that "total contribution" may not be quantifiable, that still doesn't make the divorce arrangement fair to a wealthy person who marries a poor one.

    • Re:Bezos (Score:4, Informative)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @01:38PM (#60907348) Journal

      Bezos would be worth double

      Not double. His wife got 25% of his wealth under the settlement.

  • Help me understand (Score:3, Insightful)

    by justinleona ( 6314896 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:22PM (#60907074)

    How does a car company selling less than a million units a year warrant such rapid increase in perceived value? Certainly Tesla has a lead in battery technology, but are investors expecting Tesla to be as dominant in the car/battery market as Amazon/Facebook/Google are in their respective industries?

    • Yes.

    • Re:Help me understand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by crow ( 16139 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:34PM (#60907130) Homepage Journal

      Tesla is expected to sell a million cars in 2021 and has been doubling every two years. There is a lot of future growth factored into the stock price.

      • > There is a lot of future growth factored into the stock price.

        "A lot" is an understatement. There is an inconceivable amount of growth factored into the share price. It assumes that no other company will ever sell cars again, INCLUDING companies like BVD which already sell 4X or 5X as many *electric* cars than Tesla does.

        It assumes that none of the automakers will ever sell any electrics, despite assuming that consumers will only buy electric.

        • Re:Help me understand (Score:4, Insightful)

          by RhettLivingston ( 544140 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @01:26PM (#60907304) Journal
          Analysts justify stock prices on a five-year forecast. Given Tesla's profit per vehicle (ranging from just over 20% to now very close to 30% on the ones made and sold in China), sales of 2 million units per year in the 2025-26 model year would justify the $700 level given today's normal multiples. 2 million units per year is very achievable over that timespan given their now proven rapidity at deploying new factories (and improving with every one of them).

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mspohr ( 589790 )

          BYD makes cars.
          BVD makes underware.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jhecht ( 143058 )
          The current market has pumped up the value of growth stocks to the point of "irrational exuberance" that gave us the tech bubble twenty years ago. What's holding it up now is the huge volume of funny money the market has created that investors want to stash elsewhere so they can pump it up further.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      People aren't bidding up the stock based on what it is worth today. It's based on what they think it will be worth in the future. I have more faith in Musk's company being relevant in 10 years than I do of something like Walmart (Fortune #1). I suspect that is why Walmart has a relatively low valuation multiple even though it generates a half a trillion dollars a year in revenue, and handy profit, and a dividend for shareholders for the past few decades running.

    • How does a car company selling less than a million units a year warrant such rapid increase in perceived value?

      Just think of how long it will take any automaker to build out anything like the Supercharger network, and you see that Tesla has the foundation to be a huge market leader in electric cars for many, many years to come...

      Not to mention the sleeper hits of power walls and solar roofs, both of which have major advantages over competition if you look into details of what they offer right now. And they

    • It probably needs to be said that Robinhood, ETrade, and similar have a lot to do with the situation. I can't tell you how many times my Virgin Galactic stock has shot up when there is favorable news for Virgin mobile, Virgin Orbital, etc... no different with Musk and Tesla. Tesla stocks shouldn't be tied to how well Nikola is doing in the news cycle, yet here we are. Greed and stupid uneducated investors are pumping it up, and Tesla had no choice but to capitalize (literally) on the surge. Now they're

    • That is like askinghow a blockchain number can be worth $20k.

      It has absolutely nothing to with that business. And evrything with how strong they expect the delusion to be for stupid people that give them money.

  • Secrets to his success (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joe2020 ( 6760092 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:25PM (#60907080)

    The BBC interviewed him on his success and wrote this about him: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus... [bbc.co.uk]

    The short list of his secrets are:

    1. It isn't about the money
    2. Pursue your passions
    3. Don't be afraid to think big
    4. Be ready to take risks
    5. Ignore the critics
    6. Enjoy yourself

    Seems alright! Let's hope he keeps it this way and doesn't start killing the competition like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos just because they wanted more.

    • Re:Secrets to his success (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:48PM (#60907176) Homepage

      That is really good advice on how to go from being the top 10% to being the top 1%.

      It is acceptable advice for people that are in the top 40% of wealth.

      It is horrible advice for anyone that is in the bottom 60%. (Except the last).

      You have to make it mostly about the money if you are in the bottom 60%. Otherwise you end up broke and homeless.

      No one will trust you enough to pursue your passions OR think Big unless you have the money to fund yourself.

      When the risk is lose 1/2 your assets, including both vacation homes, that is a GOOD idea to take. When the risk is lose 1/2 your assets and have to sell your car AND your only home, that is not a good idea.

      If your critics are celebrities, news, and politicians, ignore them. When they are your boss, family, and friends, pay CLOSE attention to them.

      But he is right, you should always enjoy yourself.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Falos ( 2905315 )

        Instructions unclear, spent everything on lotto scratchers quit my job to join a band and took out loans to invest in bacon-flavored yogurt.

        The irony of YOLO is that the concept of scarcity has always meant something to be guarded, not squandered.

      • So for you, then (Score:5, Insightful)

        by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Thursday January 07, 2021 @01:28PM (#60907310) Journal

        > That is really good advice on how to go from being the top 10% to being the top 1%.
        > It is acceptable advice for people that are in the top 40% of wealth

        So it "is really good advice" for you, then. You are in the top 10% richest people in the world if your net worth (including equity in your home, car, 401k, bank account, etc) is greater than $118K.

        I don't know if you're aware, but when rich people like you whine that someone else is even richer, the perception is the same as when Hillary Banks is unhappy with the BMW because the neighbor has a Bentley. It's precisely the same thing. You're one of the richest people on the planet, dude.

        • and I'm not rich at all. The bank can and will take back the house if I stop making payments, I have very little in savings thanks to 2 major illnesses in my family (can you guess which country I'm in) and multiple economic crashes brought on by Wall Street gambling.

          On paper I'm "rich" but it's all a house of cards. I'm one round of layoffs during a bad economy way from homelessness, and at least 60% of Americans are too. Probably 70%, maybe 80%.

          There's a reason we had civil unrest in the Capital Bu
          • No, you are immensely wealthy, but you just don't realize how poor most of the world actually is. Fortunately it's all improving at a rapid pace that's not something many would have believed possible, but the fact that you have access to healthcare at all is a luxury most of the world doesn't have, and that's just for a lot of the basics. However, it doesn't matter how much money you have if you spend beyond your means. Even someone who makes a million dollars a year can bury themselves in so much debt that

        • 1) Yes. It is good advice for me. I am rich. Among other things, I own shares of Tesla. I love that crazy idiot-savant Elon, he is one of the reasons I am so well off.

          2) You have some personal issues unrelated to me. I never whined about him being rich. I simply pointed out that a man I admire gave advice to other rich people, but that most people have no business following him.

          He may be a genius about some things, but he is also bat shit insane, and nobody should listen to personal advice from him

          • > You have some personal issues unrelated to me. I never whined about him being rich.

            That is true. My apologies.

            I'm getting so sick and f*cking tired of spoiled, entitled brats talking about "rich people" that I had a premature gut reaction when I started reading your post. I didn't carefully read it and respond to what you actually said because my pathos started screaming and my logos couldn't focus.

      • The trouble with how most people understand "the rich" is all they see is the money and not the behavior. The difference between a rich person and a poor person isn't in how you make your money, it's how you spend (or leverage) your money.

        A poor person scraps and saves for $50000 and decides to spend it on a really nice RV, so they can enjoy their time away from work.

        A rich person scraps and saves for $50000 and decides to invest it in the stock market, or perhaps an idea to start a business, so they can e

    • Ignore the critics

      Too bad he doesn't listen to his own advice.

    • Easy enough to do when your family owned an emerald mine.

      And no, I'm not buying the whitewashed stories I keep reading. Just like Bill Gates did Elon will have used some of his money to work up a nice, down home story of his humble origins.

      Never ask a man how he made his first million bucks. And definitely don't ask his publicist.

    • 5. Ignore the critics

      I kind of wish he did that more, instead of implying that his critics are pedophiles or morons, and egging them on more and more.

  • That's a hell of a lot of capital he has full control over deploying*. I think that's a good thing on balance. Although his irresponsible, and often unscientific, statements this past year have severely tempered my admiration, I still believe in his feelings of duty to improve our collective future, and unlike Gates to do so in the areas that are most sorely in need of action. That might be enough capital to accelerate fusion research by a decade, for example. That's what I'd do with 10^11 dollars...

    * anyon

  • If you confiscated their wealth (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just to put things in perspective:

    If you were to confiscate all 370 billion of their combined net worth, you could fund the Federal Government for 28 days.

    • Or, the military budgets of the 3rd to 15th (inclusive) top countries in the world, for a year.

  • He's the richest person *on paper* It's mostly from stocks, which would immediately devalue if he were to liquidate his assets.

    The other factor is that these lists only cover *personal* wealth. The Saudi Royal Family, for example, owns the entire Saudi government. If they want to buy an airline, they can have the government pay for it. It's not *technically* their money, but they control every aspect of it. Individually, as far as anyone knows, they are worth several billion dollars. As a family, with all o

    • He still might be #2 actually. Vladimir Putin was estimated by some to be worth $200 billion back in 2018. Musk is still only at a paltry $185 billion.

      https://www.townandcountrymag.... [townandcountrymag.com]

    • He's the richest person *on paper* It's mostly from stocks

      Are you implying that someone with, say, $1000 in cash, as opposed to stocks, is richer?

      • I'm saying it's difficult to nail down someone's net worth when most of it is fungible assets. His assets are worth what people decide to buy them for. It might be $185 billion, or it might be less. All it would take is an accounting scandal, or some bad press, and he'd be worth significantly less.

        Now take dictators, monarchs and oligarchs. They are, usually, sitting on large piles of cash in one form or another. They aren't going to let anyone know how much or where it's stored. When Yasser Arafat died, fo

  • He was shitting bricks in early 2020 to reopen his car plant. The lockdown might have messed with his plans and who isn't willing to risk other peoples lives for their plans.

  • It's not just Musk. Lots of people have become millionaires this year because they bought the stock cheaply in the past.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/busin... [bbc.com]

  • He says he's the richest because he has me and my sister for children and that's worth more than anything in the world!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I am just as rich as Musk

    “He who is satisfied with his lot is rich;”

    (disclaimer: I am not actually satisfied with my lot)

  • Can't buy a single stick of gum from me, with that makebelief money.

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