Bezos Needs a Trillion Dollars Added to Amazon’s Value to Catch Up with Musk

The CEO of Tesla and the richest man in the world added more than $36 billion to his wealth on Monday after the automaker’s stock rose by 12.7% following the announcement of Hertz's order for 100,000 cars to build its fleet of electric vehicles by the end of 2022. This one-day increase in wealth was the largest in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, equaling the net increase in the fortunes of the 34 richest people in the world. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk's wealth of $289 billion puts him about $100 billion ahead of former number one Jeff Bezos, whose wealth was $193 billion as of Monday. Musk has also expanded his lead over other previous holders of the title of richest person in the world, now surpassing Warren Buffett's wealth by $184 billion, who currently ranks tenth among the world's billionaires, and is about $150 billion ahead of Bill Gates, who is in fourth place. Musk’s net worth is now so large that it exceeds the market value of the world’s second-largest automaker, Toyota, which is valued at around $283 billion. Musk has added $119 billion to his fortune this year, thanks to Tesla's strong stock performance and his recent sale of shares in SpaceX, which he founded, valuing the company at $100 billion, with the latest funding round for SpaceX adding about $11 billion to Musk's wealth. On Monday, Tesla joined the exclusive club of companies valued at over a trillion dollars for the first time, alongside tech giants Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. According to calculations by "Al-Arabiya.net," for Jeff Bezos, the second richest person in the world, to catch up with his competitor Musk, the market value of Amazon would need to increase by about a trillion dollars, as Bezos owns only 10% as the largest individual shareholder in the company. Despite Musk's previous promise of "not owning a home," and his statement last year that he intends to sell nearly all of his physical belongings, the richest man in the world still has a penchant for purchasing certain assets. In a Sotheby’s auction in 2013, Musk paid nearly a million dollars for a rare 1976 Lotus Esprit sports car used in the filming of the James Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" in 1977. His car collection is also said to include a 1920 Ford Model T and a 1967 Jaguar Series 1 E-Type Roadster.