Musk world’s richest person

Elon Musk has overtaken Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest person after his net worth surged to almost $190 billion (NZ$261b) following an extraordinary year for electric car company Tesla. Its shares rose by 7pc yesterday, pushing the company past Facebook in value and making Musk’s 20 per cent stake worth $138b. He also owns a stake in privately held rocket company SpaceX. Yesterday’s surge left 49-year-old Musk around $1.5b richer than Amazon founder Bezos, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s wealthiest people. Musk was worth just $27b at the start of 2020 but his fortune has rocketed because of a 760 per cent jump in Tesla shares over the past year, as the pandemic -triggered a rush into tech stocks.