- Elon Musk regains the top spot as the world’s richest person thanks to Tesla shares.
- Tesla shares are up more than 25% in the past month, boosting Musk’s wealth by 40.5% so far in 2023.
- Bernard Arnault is now the second richest, followed by Jeff Bezos.
While Twitter’s stock may not recoup what it’s lost in the past six months, Tesla’s stock is once again making Elon Musk the world’s richest person.
Musk returned to that privileged place in May as shares of the electric vehicle maker rose more than 25 percent last month, according to data published by Eikon.
According to the same source, the wealth of Americans of South African descent has grown 40.5 percent so far in 2023, to more than $190 billion, based on data from the Bloomberg Tycoon Index.
Musk had briefly lost the top spot on the list to the face of luxury brand empire LVMH, Frenchman Bernard Arnault, after Tesla shares fell.
In that fall, it was key that Musk defocused his priorities towards Twitter, when he bought the social network in November 2022 for 44 billion dollars.
Today, Twitter is worth less than $22 billion and is no longer publicly traded.
Tesla’s stock performance is key for Musk because he owns about 13 percent of that company, according to FactSet data.
At the end of 2022, Musk dropped to the top of the list when Arnault took advantage of Tesla’s falling value.
Musk is also the CEO of SpaceX, a rocket company that seeks to be the world’s largest private space explorer.
Tesla’s shares rose again this week after the tycoon met senior Chinese officials, including Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in Shanghai.
The visit occurred when the tension between the United States and the Asian giant has returned to the news.
Qin reportedly assured Musk that China remains open to foreign companies and will not stop offering them a “friendly business environment.”
Musk has heavy investments in China, especially through a Tesla plant.
Tesla shares are above $203 per unit, notably above the $167 they touched in November 2022, the lowest value since mid-2020, amid the pandemic.
That fall was caused, in part, by the sale of assets that Musk carried out in order to raise the money to buy Twitter.
arnault is now the second richest after Musk, with about 188 billion dollars.
Third on the list is Jeff Bezosthe millionaire co-founder of Amazon, always according to information from Bloomberg.
The cover image of this article was created with artificial intelligence and posted by Musk himself on Twitter.
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