Elon Musk surpasses the net worth of Bezos and Zuckerberg combined

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla has reached a net worth of $486 billion at the age of 53, surpassing Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg combined, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Musk recently invested $277 million in the campaign of Republican Donald Trump which quickly turned to $224 billion in just 43 days since the US elections in November.

Musk’s net worth is almost double that of Jeff Bezos, the second-richest person and founder of Amazon, who is currently worth $250 billion. While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the third richest with $219 billion.

Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, has a 13 per cent stake in Tesla, the electric car company, which soared from $242 on November 5 to $479.86 on Tuesday (Dec 17). On the same day, Musk’s worth increased by $12 billion, making his current fortunes more than the gross domestic product of Bangladesh, Vietnam and the Philippines.

It is expected that Musk’s close relations with President-elect Trump will benefit Tesla shareholders gain increased profits from federal policies that favour electric cars and automated driving.

Apart from Tesla, Musk has a 42 per cent stake in SpaceX, a private space exploration company, which is valued at $350 billion, according to Bloomberg News. The company’s valuation has doubled within a year, making it the world’s most valuable startup.

SpaceX has an extensive network of Starlink satellites and undertakes space missions to deliver supplies to NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station via its Dragon 2 spacecraft along with providing private spaceflights.

Musk also founded xAI in 2023, an artificial intelligence firm, which further increased his fortunes. The company, which is a competitor of OpenAI, is valued at $50 billion, $25 billion of which is estimated to be Musk’s stake.

Musk also owns the social media platform X, a tunnel construction firm Boring Company, and the brain implant startup Neuralink. He is also a longtime investor in cryptocurrencies.

Recently he was appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency by Trump, which promised to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.