Elon Musk broke his $340 billion wealth record as Tesla stock keeps rising
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
- Elon Musk set a new wealth record after a Tesla stock surge since the election.
- The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has grown $118 billion richer this year, fueled by Tesla's 42% jump.
- His net worth was also boosted by a new funding round for his AI startup, xAI.
Elon Musk just broke his wealth record following Tesla's postelection rally.
The world's richest person is now worth $347.8 billion thanks to a 3.8% jump in Tesla's stock on Friday and a new funding round that gave Musk's artificial intelligence startup, xAI, a $50 billion valuation, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The figure surpasses the previous record high Musk set in 2021 at around $340.4 billion.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO's net worth has soared by an unmatched $117.8 billion this year, putting him more than $128 billion ahead of the runner-up on the rich list, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who's worth $219 billion.
Tesla stock has surged since Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election to close on Friday at $352.56, as investors wagered the electric vehicle maker would benefit from Musk's close ties to the president-elect.
Mark Malek, the chief investment officer at Siebert, recently told BI that "some sort of premium has been placed on the stock as a result of Musk's very public involvement in Trump's campaign."
The tech billionaire championed Trump on X, and his super PAC spent an estimated $200 million to get the former president back into office, the Associated Press reported.
Tesla stock was up 42% for the year at Friday's close, leaving it some way off its record close of $410 on November 4, 2021. The automaker's market capitalization has ballooned to more than $1.1 trillion, making it more valuable than Warren Buffett's $1 trillion conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway.
Musk's roughly 13% stake in the company has jumped in value as a result. At about $348 billion, his personal fortune comfortably exceeds Salesforce's $327 billion. The billionaire's worth is also boosted by a recent funding round at xAI, raising $5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The funding round puts the startup at a $50 billion valuation.