Musk Overtakes Zuckerberg To Be World’s Third Richest Person

Tesla Co- founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has surpassed Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to become the third richest person in the world. His further increase in wealth took place in the backdrop of Tesla’s addition to the S&P 500 index, which lead to a soaring rise in the shares of the electric automaker on Tuesday.

By the opening bell on Tuesday as per the Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, Tesla’s stock gained 12 per cent and was accompanied by an overnight rise in Musk’s wealth by $11.8 billion. He is worth $114 billion now, making him one of the richest persons in the world.

Despite this wealth, it does not mean an increase in his spending power though. Musk, who is the highest-paid executive in the world on paper, takes no salary from the company but he owns a majority of its equity. He has a 12-level compensation package, which earned him about $600 million in 2019 alone.

In addition, he derives his wealth from his massive stakes in ventures like SpaceX and Boring Company, apart from Tesla.

Earlier, the billionaire has spoken of his “cash poor” lifestyle. He has even mortgaged many of his mansions in the Los Angeles area. For his vow to sell his physical possessions, three of these homes were listed for sale earlier this year.

He can make $55 billion from his 20 million stock options after the performance metrics like cash flow and market value are reached. He will have to sell his options to spend that amount of wealth but he has not sold any of his stakes since 2016.

Through a complicated process, Tesla will be joining the benchmark S&P index in December officially. Tesla will be the biggest new entrant in the history of the group.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world with a total net worth of $184 billion, followed by Warren Buffet.