Elon Musk overtakes Bill Gates, becomes second-richest in the world

The story of the rise of Elon Musk continues to add new chapters as the Tesla co-founder passed Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person. The 49-year-old entrepreneur’s net worth soared $7.2 billion to $127.9 billion. Musk has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

It is only the second time that Bill Gates is out of the top two of the list. Musk unseats an occasional verbal sparring partner in Gates, who the Tesla billionaire has ridiculed on Twitter for, among other things, having “no clue” about electric trucks. The two have also traded barbs over COVID-19.

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Gates, whose charitable foundation is one of the preeminent bodies backing vaccine research, has expressed concern over Musk’s stated suspicion of pandemic data and embrace of certain conspiracy theories. Musk’s advance up the wealth ranks has been driven largely by Tesla, whose market value is approaching $500 billion.

Despite the pandemic, which has wrecked the world economy, the members of the Bloomberg index have collectively gained $1.3 trillion.