Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX entrepreneur was named as the wealthiest person on the planet this – taking the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who had held it since 2017, according to Forbes. It is said his net worth crossed $185 billion (RM748 billion).
No doubt Elon Musk is incredibly smart person and willing to embrace huge levels of risk. But how did he become the richest person in the world out of sudden? The answer is simple, Tesla’s share price increase seven-fold last Thursday pushing him into the top spot past Jeff Bezos. Even though shares in Amazon have also risen in value, but not as sharply, adding that Jeff gave his ex-wife 4% stake in Amazon as part of the couple’s divorce settlement.
Tesla has surged in value this year and hit a market value of $700 billion and despite the fact that the electric car company only recently recorded its first actual profits. The automaker’s market cap is now bigger than Toyota, Volkswagen, GM, Ford and Hyundai combined.
So how did Elon Musk spend his money?
According to his tweet, he stated that about half of his money is intended to help problems on earth, and half to help establish a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure continuation of life (of all species) in case earth gets hit by a meteor like the dinosaurs or World War 3 (WW3) happens and human destroy themselves. It may sounds ridiculous, but coming from the person who pushes the boundaries of space travel, it is an idea that we should explore.
Elon Musk even had a controversial pay package before where he agreed to receive no salary or bonuses from his companies
Back in 2018, the Tesla CEO agreed to receive no salary or bonuses in exchange for a purely performance-based compensation plan.
Meaning, each time Tesla’s market capitalisation crossed a milestone, starting at $100 billion, he would receive Tesla stock options up to a market cap of $650 billion. At that time, many doubted that the electric automaker could enrich Elon Musk as much as the pay package envisioned. However, he proved them wrond as he’s named as the world’s richest person.
No one could imagine an electric automaker that worth $27 billion before, now valued at $773 billion – up seven-fold since last year
He overtook Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who is worth $96.9 billion) and even surpassed Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates (worth $122 billion). Elon Musk also overtook French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault (worth $154.8 billion) to become the world’s richest person.
His response to becoming the world’s wealthiest person?
Well, back to work …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2021
He casually responded to the tweet calling him as the richest person in the world by saying “how strange” and “well, back to work”.
What every business leader can learn from him is, some day you’re the hero and other days you’re the goat and it’s a lot smarter to ignore those ups and downs in what people (and markets) think of you. Instead, apply what Elon Musk does which is focus on making your product as awesome as it could be.
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