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Elon Musk is close to surpassing Jeff Bezos as world's richest person

Elon Musk is close to surpassing Jeff Bezos as world's richest person

Bezos and Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is close to surpassing Amazon.com Inc's billionaire Chief ExecutiveJeffBezos as the world's richest person.

Electric carmaker Tesla closed trading on Wednesday with a market value topping $700 billion for the first time.Tesla's share price ended with a gain of 2.8 per cent to $755.98 for a total value of whopping $717 billion.

The boost in the market value of Tesla enabled Musk to be within a range of $3 million of Bezos who currently occupied the top spot of Bloomberg's Billionaire's Index.

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An over 670 per centjump in Tesla shares this year has boosted Musk's net worth from $27 billion to $155 billion, just behind Amazon.com Inc'sJeffBezos, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

After shares rocketed higher in 2020 on surging auto deliveries, Tesla enters 2021 with plenty of momentum even as its vision of taking electric cars mainstream remains a way off.

The auto industry disruptor led byElonMuskwowed Wall Street yet again over the weekend, reporting annual car deliveries of 499,550, just shy of its 2020 target of half a million, but well above analyst estimates.

The disclosure capped a year that saw Tesla report a series of profitable quarters and join the S&P 500, establishing the company as one of the world's most valuable businesses and elevatingMuskto the second-wealthiest person behind Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Aerospace companies such as Musk's SpaceX andBezos' Blue Origin are aiming to become the first private firm to launch a human into space.

Super-rich businesspeople including Tesla Inc chief executive Elon Musk and Amazon.com Inc founderJeffBezoswho want to colonise space to support human life are pouring cash into cutting-edge private spacecraft.