Elon Musk passes Jeff Bezos to become world's richest

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - American electric carmaker Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday has surpassed Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest person.

As stock price of Tesla soared to an all-time highest level of $808.66 per share at 11.42 EDT (1642GMT), Musk's net worth climbed to $185 billion.

The move pushed Musk's worth above Bezos' $184 billion who had been the world's richest person since the summer of 2017.

Musk's skyrocketing increase in wealth is much due to Tesla's unprecedented rise in stock value that saw a 762% increase since the same day a year ago when Tesla shares were trading at $93.81, according to official figures.

After passing investor guru and business tycoon Warren Buffett in July to become the world's seventh richest person, Musk surpassed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in November to become the second richest person in the world.

Bezos saw his Amazon shares climbing during the coronavirus pandemic when most of the world was under lockdown; however his e-commerce company could not keep up with its $1.61 trillion market value.

Despite Tesla's $761 billion market capitalization trailing behind Amazon, investors believe that the electric carmaker has more room to grow as the world would strongly turn away from fossil fuels to electric cars in the next decade.