Due to a variety of factors, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has blown past Warren Buffett to becomes the world’s seventh-richest person. Elon is involved in many different companies but his engineering endeavors at Tesla primarily facilitate his absurd wealth, as the company is currently the most valuable automobile manufacturer on Earth. To some degree, this milestone is also aided by Warren Buffett’s decision to give most of his wealth to philanthropic interests, which recently led to him losing about $3 billion in his net worth.
Elon Musk is an unusual, controversial figure, especially as billionaires go. Next to Donald Trump, the SpaceX, Neuralink, Tesla, and Starlink leader is perhaps the most active billionaire on social media. He makes headlines practically weekly for his outlandish or confusing comments on Twitter, which often brings into question the intelligence of the clearly brilliant engineer. At the same time, given the enormous scale and ambition of most of his business ventures, Elon Musk is also impossible to ignore, no matter how ridiculous his tweets get.
Now the tech mogul has even more money and influence. CNN Business reports the latest financial surge for Musk came as a result of a 10.8% increase in Tesla’s stock price, which brought the company’s market value to $286.5 billion. Since Musk owns about 20% of Tesla’s stock, that increased his personal worth to almost $60 billion. Factoring in Warren Buffett’s fortune dipping, this increase for Tesla’s stock has pushed Elon Musk just past the 8th spot for worldwide riches.
Why Tesla’s Stock Is So High
With Elon Musk running so many companies, it’s not surprising that he’s a billionaire. Tesla becoming such a dominant market leader on Wall Street is something of a phenomenon, though. It’s hard to point to one specific reason why the company does so well, but one area in which Tesla excels is its ability to remain future-proof. Just about every advancement we can reasonably expect for the near future of automobiles is something Tesla vehicles either already embody, or plan to.
A great example of this is the company’s progress with electric vehicles. Telsa isn’t the only electric car manufacturer out there, but it sold more such vehicles than anyone else in 2020. That feat was accomplished in part because the company has offered online vehicle ordering and delivery for years – a decision that paid off when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and car dealerships were no longer able to do business. But, beyond just its ability to deliver vehicles when no one else could, Tesla’s electric car business performs well because the brand itself is synonymous with futuristic technology that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels. Clean energy has always been its thing, and those ideas will only increase in popularity as other brands catch up.
Tesla also impressed potential investors because of Elon Musk. SpaceX doesn’t sell cars but consistently seeing Elon Musk in the news with literal rocket ships likely instills in people a sense that the man knows what he’s doing when he talks about engineering. It’s not hard to trust someone’s technical expertise when they’re building electric cars, respirators, and spaceships seemingly simultaneously. Elon Musk clearly says some things on Twitter at times that negatively impact his wealth, but he’s also the face of some of the world’s most impressive technological efforts. There’s a great chance he’ll be number 6 on that wealthiest people list before the end of 2021.
CNN Business [via Bloomberg]