Elon Musk leaves Bill Gates behind to become SECOND-RICHEST person on planet

Tesla founder Elon Musk’s net worth soared to $127.9 billion on Monday, driven by yet another surge in the company’s share price. And so, the 49-year-old billionaire has surpassed Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest man.

Tesla stock rose more than six percent in Monday trading to a record close of $521.85, ending the day with a market cap of around $464 billion. That equated to a $7.2 billion single-day gain in Musk’s net worth.

The entrepreneur has mostly profited from the massive surge in Tesla stock, which has skyrocketed more than 520 percent, year to date. He has added $100.3 billion to his net worth this year, the most of anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The entrepreneur began the year in 35th place on the index.

Last week, he knocked fellow billionaire and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg down a notch from that list.

According to Bloomberg, the co-founder of Microsoft, Gates, would likely place higher if he had not given away more than $27 billion of his fortune to the Gates Foundation since 2006.

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is currently the world’s wealthiest individual, with a fortune of $182 billion, up more than $67 billion this year.

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