Bezos reclaims world’s richest title from Musk

Elon Musk’s reign as the the world’s richest person was brief. Tesla shares slid 2.4 per cent on Tuesday, erasing $4.6 billion from its chief executive officer’s fortune and knocking him from the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index ranking.

Jeff Bezos, who’d held the title for more than three years until last month, reclaimed his No 1 position with a net worth of $191.2 billion, or $955 million more than Musk.

Musk’s drop ends — for now — an almost six-week stint as world’s richest person that saw him front and center in some of the biggest market events so far this year. He fanned the flames of the Reddit-driven Gamestop rally and sent the shares of Etsy, Shopify, CD Projekt SA and Signal Advance soaring with boosterish tweets.

Recently he’s roiled the price of Bitcoin and even Dogecoin, a lesserknown cryptocurrency that Musk spiked with a tweeted meme earlier this month. Bitcoin meanwhile blew past $50,000 days after Tesla revealed plans to hold $1.5 billion of the cryptocurrency on its balance sheet. Still, despite Musk’s seemingly constant social media presence, Tesla shares have slid almost 10 per cent from a January 26 peak. It’s been an eventful stretch for Bezos as well. He resumes the mantle of world’s richest person as he’s about to cede a title of his own. Amazon.com announced this month that Bezos will down step as CEO of the ecommerce giant in the third quarter to focus on other projects.