Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.
A 4.8 per cent rally in the electric car maker’s share price on Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.
The South Africa-born engineer’s net worth was $188.5 billion at 10.15am in New York (7.15pm UAE time), $1.5bn more than Mr Bezos, who has held the top spot since October 2017. As chief executive of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, Mr Musk is also a rival to Mr Bezos, owner of Blue Origin, in the private space race.
The milestone caps an extraordinary 12 months for Mr Musk. Over the past year his net worth soared by more than $150bn in possibly the fastest bout of wealth creation in history.
Fuelling his rise was an unprecedented rally in Tesla’s share price, which surged 743 per cent last year on the back of consistent profits, inclusion in the S&P 500 Index and enthusiasm from Wall Street and retail investors alike.
Mr Bezos would still hold a wide lead over Musk had it not been for his divorce, which saw him cede about a quarter of his Amazon stake to his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, and his philanthropy. He donated shares worth about $680 million in November.
The jump in Tesla’s stock price further inflates a valuation light-years apart from other car makers on numerous metrics.
Tesla produced just over 500,000 cars last year, a fraction of the output of Ford Motor and General Motors. The company is poised for further near-term gains as Democrats captured both Georgia Senate seats and handed control of Congress to the party that's advocated for quicker adoption of electric vehicles.
Mr Musk, 49, has benefited from Tesla’s stratospheric rise in more than one way. In addition to his 20 per cent stake in the car maker, he’s sitting on about $42bn of unrealised paper gains on vested stock options. Those securities come from two grants he received in 2012 and 2018, the latter of which was the largest pay deal ever struck between a chief executive and a corporate board.
Despite his astronomical gains, Mr Musk has said he has little interest in material things and has few assets outside his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX. He told Axel Springer in an interview last month that the main purpose of his wealth is to accelerate humanity’s evolution into a spacefaring civilisation.
“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said. “That means just a lot of capital.”
Mr Musk tweeted “How strange,” after reports of his new status were published, then added “Well, back to work”.
The world’s 500 richest people added a record $1.8 trillion to their combined net worth last year, equivalent to a 31 per cent increase. The gains were disproportionately at the top, where five individuals hold fortunes in excess of $100bn and another 20 are worth at least $50bn.
Less than a week into the new year the rankings have already been upended by extraordinary rallies. China’s Zhong Shanshan has vaulted past Warren Buffett to claim the sixth slot after shares of his bottled-water company surged, adding $15.2bn to his fortune.
INVESTMENT PLEDGES
Cartlow: $13.4m
Rabbitmart: $14m
Smileneo: $5.8m
Soum: $4m
imVentures: $100m
Plug and Play: $25m
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Reputation
Taylor Swift
(Big Machine Records)
Poacher
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ERichie%20Mehta%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Nimisha%20Sajayan%2C%20Roshan%20Mathew%2C%20Dibyendu%20Bhattacharya%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The%20specs
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Other ways to buy used products in the UAE
UAE insurance firm Al Wathba National Insurance Company (AWNIC) last year launched an e-commerce website with a facility enabling users to buy car wrecks.
Bidders and potential buyers register on the online salvage car auction portal to view vehicles, review condition reports, or arrange physical surveys, and then start bidding for motors they plan to restore or harvest for parts.
Physical salvage car auctions are a common method for insurers around the world to move on heavily damaged vehicles, but AWNIC is one of the few UAE insurers to offer such services online.
For cars and less sizeable items such as bicycles and furniture, Dubizzle is arguably the best-known marketplace for pre-loved.
Founded in 2005, in recent years it has been joined by a plethora of Facebook community pages for shifting used goods, including Abu Dhabi Marketplace, Flea Market UAE and Arabian Ranches Souq Market while sites such as The Luxury Closet and Riot deal largely in second-hand fashion.
At the high-end of the pre-used spectrum, resellers such as Timepiece360.ae, WatchBox Middle East and Watches Market Dubai deal in authenticated second-hand luxury timepieces from brands such as Rolex, Hublot and Tag Heuer, with a warranty.
Company%20profile
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Director: Romany Saad
Starring: Mirfat Amin, Boumi Fouad and Tariq Al Ibyari
THE BIO
Favourite place to go to in the UAE: The desert sand dunes, just after some rain
Who inspires you: Anybody with new and smart ideas, challenging questions, an open mind and a positive attitude
Where would you like to retire: Most probably in my home country, Hungary, but with frequent returns to the UAE
Favorite book: A book by Transilvanian author, Albert Wass, entitled ‘Sword and Reap’ (Kard es Kasza) - not really known internationally
Favourite subjects in school: Mathematics and science
HOW TO WATCH
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What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
