Elon Musk has overtaken Jeff Bezos to turn out to be the world’s richest particular person, having seen his wealth rise from $25 billion to almost $200bn in lower than a yr.
The billionaire polymath is finest often known as the boss of electrical automotive firm Tesla and personal rocket agency SpaceX, nonetheless he additionally heads brain-tech startup Neuralink and The Boring Company, which goals to “solve traffic” in cities by digging tunnel networks.
Before any of those ventures, Musk gained notoriety in Silicon Valley because the co-founder of on-line funds platform X.com, which went on to turn out to be PayPal.
Each new venture has been financed, at the very least partly, by funds generated from earlier enterprise successes, with every new effort changing into ever extra formidable.
Ultimately, Musk hopes to rework humanity right into a multi-planetary species by establishing a self-sufficient colony on Mars, whereas concurrently fixing a number of the largest challenges again on Earth, together with local weather change and the perceived menace from superior synthetic intelligence.
After overtaking Bezos on 7 January to say the title because the world’s richest particular person, Musk reiterated his pledge to make use of his wealth for what he believes is the better good for the world.
“You should ask why I would want money. The reason is not what you think. Very little time for recreation. Don’t have vacation homes or yachts or anything like that,” he said in a brief Twitter thread republished from 2018.
“About half my money is intended to help problems on Earth and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure the continuation of life (of all species) in case Earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or WW3 happens and we destroy ourselves.”
Musk additionally donates periodically to charity, placing out a name on Twitter this week for concepts on “ways to donate money that really make a difference”.
In May 2020, Musk tweeted that he deliberate to promote “almost all physical possessions” – a promise he delivered on earlier than 2021 by promoting three of his California properties for a mixed complete of $41 million.
He has since moved to Texas, the place he pays no state revenue taxes, in an effort to be nearer to the event of SpaceX’s Mars-bound spacecraft Starship.
In 2018, Musk revealed that he deliberate to finance SpaceX’s Mars plans by promoting a “major” stake in Tesla at some point in the future. At the time, Tesla shares had been value round $60. Today, they’re value near $900.
Tesla’s fortunes have largely pushed Musk’s personal internet value, which is now equal to the annual GDP of a small-to-medium sized nation.
If Musk’s wealth was ranked alongside the GDP of each nation on this planet, he could be the fiftieth richest nation on this planet, in response to figures from the International Monetary Fund.
Calculated in one other manner, if Musk’s internet value was distributed evenly amongst all 328 million residents within the US, every particular person would obtain roughly $600 – the identical quantity the US authorities handed out as a stimulus test in the course of the pandemic.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk